Northern Lights
by Nedy Rahn
Summary: On a cold distant planet an isolated colony of Tau'ri receive some long lost cousins of Humanity and later their cousin's deadly creations pay a visit and want to stay.
1. Chapter 1

27

**Northern Lights**

_The New Alaska Chronicles_

By

Denise Hemmingway

**Chapter One**

_**Sackett Ranch, Juneau, New Alaska 6 June 2016:**_

Tonya Emily Sackett was working the fields south of her homestead near Juneau on the American Colony of New Alaska. The homestead which she farmed and ranched for the last two years she staked the claim to under the Interstellar Homestead Act of 2013. This part of the United States Code allowed veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan, Goa'uld, Ori, Wraith, and Lucian Alliance wars to settle on 160 acre parcels on the various uninhabited worlds claimed by the United States of America as part of the Stargate Alliance.

New Alaska was a world that was locked in a severe ice age, but the area between the thirty degrees north and the thirty degrees south parallels was habitable. In fact there were animals and plant life similar to Earths found in this region both in the planet's seas and on its continents. Though the United States claimed the whole planet the actual New Alaska Territory only occupied an area the size of Rhode Island around a bay similar to San Francisco Bay in California.

Sitka, the Territorial Capital sat on at the tip of a peninsula similar to the one that was home to the city of San Francisco on Earth and Juneau was at the delta of the Yukon River similar to how Oakland was at near the Sacramento River delta back home. New Alaska's third largest city Nome sat up river from Juneau about sixty miles or two days' journey by horseback.

Tonya Sackett's ranch was halfway between Nome and Juneau, but she did most of her trading in Juneau. The road from her place to Juneau saw better maintenance that the one to Nome. Most of the time when she went to market in Juneau though she used the river galley she and her family built in 2015. The actual homeplace of the homestead was a half-day's journey up Sackett Creek, a stream that fed into the Yukon River from the San Juan Mountains that formed the wall between the Sitka Bay and the Yukon Valley.

At the junction between Sackett's Creek and the Yukon River some of her family founded a small town which they named for the creek. From the shelf of land she was plowing she could see the roves of the buildings in Sackett's Creek. It was a town of 300 that straddled the stream which gave the settlement its name. Mostly Tonya used Sackett's Creek for groceries and a place to unwind at the end of a week of working the homestead with her two daughters Helena and Lucy, her brother Tyrell and his family, and her Uncle Orrin and his family.

Tonya thought that it would be nice to set down roots somewhere she could call her own. The Sackett Ranch outside the La Plata County Colorado town of Shalako belonged to her older uncle, Thomas William Tell Sackett. So she after the death of her husband and fourth cousin, Lucas Marcus Sackett in a shootout with a local motorcycle gang that dealt in methamphetamine, high-tech cattle rustling, illegal weapons, human trafficking, and other crimes she registered with the Bureau of Resettlement or BuReset the agency that oversaw the homesteading of the off-world territories for the U.S. When she got her notice she packed up her daughters, went in with her twin brother and their uncle buying up the supplies, livestock, and other gear and goods they would need to establish their homesteads and to live off of for the first year or so.

For them it was like reliving the family's history. The Sackett family was one of the oldest families in the United States and now it would be one of the first families of New Alaska. Two years of hard labor panned out for them and now they had a combined heard of over 200 head of cattle that were resistant to cold climates, 100 head of horses with similar resistances, 500 llamas that they used for wool, meat, and as pack animals, 500 alpacas that were used mostly for meat and wool, 500 goats that were used for wool, milk, and cheese, 1000 chickens, 500 sheep, and 1000 rabbits.

Besides their combined livestock there was over 300 acres under plow and 180 acres of land they left wild along the flood plain of Sackett's Creek. Upstream from their main homesteads the family filed on over 100,000 acres of pasture and woodlands. Their homeplaces stood well within sight and rifle range of each other for overlapping protection. Not that any native inhabitants of New Alaska had been discovered yet, but no one living outside of the half dozen or so communities that have been established on the planet took chances.

Along those lines in 2015 BuReset started clearing out the Skid Rows of the major urban centers in the U.S. and well dumped their catches on the worlds of the Off-World Territories. One of the reasons for the towns and homestead of planets like New Alaska maintaining some sort of fortifications stemmed from the roving gangs of marauders that spawned from the hordes of Involuntary Settlers or Dumpees as the more traditional settlers like the Sacketts called them.

This was the reason Tonya went armed to her fields or pastures when checking crops, livestock, or fences. She carried a Ruger SR-556 in the military standard 5.56x45mm equipped with a good optical battle sight and back up fold down iron sights. She wore a ballistic armored tactical vest which had a holster with her sidearm a Ruger P345 in .45 ACP, six pockets for pistol magazines and four pockets for her rifle magazines. The SR-556 was Ruger's gas-piston driven version of the military standard M4 carbine. Many settlers carried some variant of the M4 making it almost as common place on the worlds of the Off-World Territories as the Winchester Model 1866 and Model 1873 rifles and carbines were in the Old West.

Tonya, her daughters, brother, his wife and son, and her uncle, his wife and two sons all carried the SR-556 and for their sidearms one or two P345s. Tyrell said once that, "Any pistol whose caliber began with a 4 was a surefire man stopper." Tonya remembered many times in engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan when she had to draw her service sidearm that she had to empty one magazine just to bring down one Jihadist. That was why when after her last tour of duty in Afghanistan and she joined the Shalako PD where her husband worked as an officer she carried the P345 over the SigSauer 9mm used by the SPD.

Today her carbine was hanging from a single point bungee sling, but she also had in a scabbard mounted to the old fashioned horse drawn plow a Mossberg M500 Persuader police shotgun in 12 gauge which she loaded with buck and ball loads hand loaded by Uncle Orrin. The buck and ball was nine buckshot and three .36 soft-lead round ball loaded into a 12 gauge magnum shell. This round made a perfect street howitzer round for clearing out bad guys. The load also brought looters and bandits to heel in a hurry.

Her daughter Helena was nearby covering her from horseback with a Springfield Armory Loaded M1A 7.62x51mm NATO rifle with a quality long-range sniper scope on it. Helena also had an SR-556 and a P345 to back that rifle up. Like the Old West firearms were a way of life on the Interstellar Frontier. Arming yourself allowed you to defend your holdings and communities because Stargate Command was shorthanded so SG teams only went to real trouble spots like where the Lucian Alliance still raided. Also Earth's Coalition Starfleet had only a few dozen ships to patrol all of Earth Space and the Protected Planets.

Law and order for frontier worlds like New Alaska and even planetary defense was a local affair. So all adults of military age whether a veteran or not were encouraged to arm themselves, well that is the Voluntary Settlers not the Involuntary Settlers. It seems that the Dumpees aren't to be trusted with guns. Yet the marauders found guns. They found guns and began to raid the outlying farms and ranches of the Territories. Here on New Alaska the Army National Guard formed up several companies of Mounted Rifles to pursue and deal with the marauder gangs and settlers were encouraged to keep themselves armed at all times.

Tonya was finished one furrow and starting another going back the way she came. Farming was hard work doing it the way of her ancestors, but it was cheaper to send livestock like horses, cows, oxen, etc. through the gate that manufactured goods, well at least big ticket items like tractors, combines and other large farm machinery. This explained Tonya using a modern made horse drawn plow. Tonya Sackett, for a woman, staring her fiftieth birthday squarely in the face, 'looked very healthy and fit. Her tactical vest fit over her light gray tactical shirt to the form of her curves. The last two years of work homesteading and farming using the methods of the 19th Century had put tone and muscles on her frame. She was as fit now at 49 as when she led a platoon of MPs in Panama back in '89.

As Tonya cut her next furrow parallel to the previous one she watched the ears of her horse. The horses she, her brother, and uncle brought with them to New Alaska were mountain breed and used to both cold weather and high altitudes. She flicked the reigns of her plow leads and yelled, "Gedyup!" Her horse strained and pulled the plow forward another twenty feet when the tactical short-ranged radio in her left shoulder pouch squawked. She heard Helena shout over the attached headset, "Get down now Ma, marauders on your six!" She jumped to the ground as the crack of Helena's M1A barked echoing off the valley walls.

Throwing the plow's reigns away from her she rolled over bringing her SR-556 to bear on a band of ten or so rugged, ragged looking people in raggedy cast-off clothing armed with what looked to be old AK-47s jumping over the stone wall that marked the western boundary of the Sackett claims. Like her daughter she fired her rifle taking down two of the attacking bandits sounding like she had just double tapped only one. Shifting her fire as she pulled her trigger she felled three more of the raiders. From behind her she heard her daughter firing her rifle like it was an air-powered tack driver. For every shot her daughter fired another marauder fell to the embrace of the cold dark earth of New Alaska. Almost as soon as the raider began it was over. Tonya got up from her position near the plow, looked around, and cursed the parents of the marauders and BuReset, letting out a stream of curses that would have made a U.S. Navy sailor blush with embarrassment. Lying on the ground ahead of the plow was the horse. The marauders' firing wasn't accurate enough to hit either Tonya or Helena, but somehow one of the maggots had fired a burst from an AK that killed the horse.

"Fucking god damned BuReset and their stupid policy of forcible relocation of the homeless and other urban poor to the Territories!" yelled Tonya as she kicked a clod of freshly turned New Alaskan dirt with her well-worn tan suede and ballistic nylon combat boots. "How'd they miss the fact that among the wretched masses they collected many nests of human vipers? Fuck! Damn! God Damn It! This is a whole day of plowing wasted and poured down the drain not to be reclaimed!"

After the fight with the marauders Tonya Sackett and her daughter Helena called back the headquarters of Sacketts' Ranch using their tactical radios to inform Tyrell and Uncle Orrin of their situation. After a half hour Tonya's twin brother and her uncle arrived with a wagon bringing along a towing harness to remove the dead plow horse from the west field. An hour later the four of them took the remains of the marauders and buried them in the soil of a small hill in the northwest corner of a twenty acre partial of the northwest field set aside for a cemetery. After saying a few, damned few words over the dead Orrin erected with the help of the other three a gate with the sign saying, "Boot Hill" over the top of the gate post.

The following weeks were a torrent of events from marauder raids on farmsteads, ranches, and small communities all over New Alaska to the activation of Tonya as the Battalion Commander of the 3/ 342nd Inf. Reg. with orders to hunt down and eliminate as many marauder bands as she could. To do her mission she sent out orders to the companies of her battalion telling her people to bring a string of six good, fast, far running horses and muster at Lysander Lewis Armory near the shores of the Yukon on the north side of Juneau.

Upon mustering Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett ordered her battalion into the field. For six weeks in June and July of 2016 they rooted out and destroyed over three dozen bands of marauders ranging in size from a few to several dozen. Her operations in the Yukon Valley weren't without friendly casualties, but for every Guardsman killed in action five to ten marauders were now buried in "Boot Hills" in unmarked graves across the width and length of the valley.

The prisoners were tried and convicted in Territorial Military Tribunals and sentenced to hard labor as involuntary contract laborers in the mines and timber operations of the Territory of New Alaska. Nearly as many Convict Laborers died before their sentences were fulfilled as died in the battles against the marauders. As for these deaths not many on New Alaska shed tears. The marauders were renegades and deserved their lot for their attacks on the settlements as far as most people felt and thought.

_**Lysander Lewis Memorial Armory Juneau, New Alaska:**_

The last day of operations saw Tonya Sackett in the Commanders Office of the Battalion Headquarters looking over recent operation reports. A knocking came from the door, which was actually open. Looking up from standing over her desk, itself designed to stand at, she said in her best command voice, "Enter!" An Active Army Colonel wearing a Stargate Command Patch entered. She came to attention and saluted. The Colonel, Patwin by name according to the name tape on his Universal Digital Pattern ACUs handed her a sealed document envelope with the SGC's seal on the front. Taking it she looked at him curiously, "It's a bit unusual for a full bird to act as a messenger so this must be very important."

COL Neal Patwin commander of SG-25 nodded and said, "Yes it's a bit unusual, but once you open that and read your new orders Colonel you'll understand." Not seeing a place to sit in the BC of 3/342nd's office he adopted a position of at ease while LTC Sackett read the orders from the SGC and Homeworld Security.

After a few minutes Tonya looked up looking a bit incredulous and also curious. "Are you sure that their heading this way?" she asked as she glanced back at the section of the orders giving her the background as to what was happening. COL Patwin nodded and confirmed the information within Sackett's orders.

"Yes about three months ago while on an exploration patrol tailing and rimward of here the USS General George Hammond under the command of Brigadier General Cameron Mitchell detected the radiation signatures of multiple nuclear detonations. Thinking that the Lucian Alliance may have regained its strength and resumed raiding lesser human civilizations in this arm of the galaxy Brig. Gen. Mitchell investigated," COL Patwin said.

Then after the Sergeant who was Sackett's orderly offered Patwin some coffee he continued, "What they found Colonel Sackett was a war. The Hammond was too late to do anything about the outcome, but she has been escorting a fleet of fifteen ships. There are five freighters, three cruise ships, two of what the locals called Agroships, a tylium ore refining ship, two mining ships that can mine in deep space, a military transport with a battalion of the local marines aboard and a ship called a Gunstar that is the local analog to a Deep Space Carrier like the Hammond." Then COL Patwin took a sip of the coffee that was given him as he watched LTC Sackett mentally digest what she was reading and what he just told her.

"Why have I been given a briefing on this? Is my battalion to have a part in providing security for these refugees?" Tonya asked as she looked at COL Patwin's face trying to read any non-verbal affirmations to her inquiries. "It says here that these ships have five to six thousand civilians besides their crews, another five hundred marines, and around fifteen hundred or so naval personnel. What's this, their civilization before the attack had an estimated population between twenty and fifty billion, billion with a B? Hell, Earth at the time I emigrated to New Alaska to take command of the Third of the Three Forty-Second was only a little over seven and a quarter billion. How many planets did these people live on?"

Tonya looked through the documents provided with the orders and found the information before COL Patwin could respond, "Twelve habitable worlds over four star systems in a cluster of two binary star systems. Christ how did this large of a space faring civilization of humans go unnoticed by us, the Goa'uld, Ori, or even the Lucians and Jaffa?"

Patwin spoke then after letting her talk asking her questions, "As near as we can tell from further investigations by the Essex, Intrepid, and Resolve, Navy commanded DSCs by the way, these people descend from a project ran by a sect of the Alterans that sought to ensure their children, us would survive the Goa'uld. Something happened on the planet these people's ancestors were taken to about four thousand years ago that forced their civilization to relocate. SG-1, the current formation of it, discovered an archive on a planet called Kobol about half-way between here and the Colonies of Kobol. According to the archive there had been thirteen tribes on Kobol before the cataclysm that forces the Colonials to abandon the planet. About three to three thousand five hundred years ago the Thirteenth of the Tribes of Kobol left to find Earth. Then about two to two and a half thousand years ago the other twelve left in space arcs they called galleons to settle in the Twelve Colonies. This was confirmed by interviewing many of the civilian and military personnel rescued from the Colonies by the Hammond, Colonel."

Using the touch screen monitor built into her desk Tonya called up the local star maps. She took a jump drive that was included with the orders packet and plugged it into a USB port on the side of her desk. She saw the location of the Colonies and the planet Kobol in relation to New Alaska and finally Earth itself. Using the highlighting utilities built into the programs and applications of her command operations computer she traced a line starting at the Cyrannus Cluster, running through the Kobol system, passing through the New Alaska system and its nebula, on past Earth to the Lagoon Nebula in the next spiral arm.

Tonya knew enough about astronomy from classes in college, her time in the SGC from 2008 to 2011, and her time as a Team Leader in and later as XO of the 117th Space Battalion of the COARNG (Colorado Army National Guard) from 2011 to 2014 before she was given command of the 3/ 342nd. Again looking up from her desk to COL Patwin, "Colonel, do you realize these people somehow know about Earth. They're not going to let any of these folks settle on Earth are they?" By the word they, Patwin knew Sackett meant the I.O.A. and the U.S. BuReset. His look confirmed for her that that was not the case. "Where are they putting these people?"

"Right here on New Alaska, right here in the area already settled by you all from Colorado and Alaska. To top that I'm the new Commanding Officer of The Hotel Site," Patwin said then added, "We'll be seeing a lot of each other along with Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Wade Stanford. Admiral Stanford is the Commanding Officer of Joint Forces Command New Alaska. He's an old Carrier Group Commander and fighter jock. We're also getting the Cow Pens Deep Space Carrier Group and a battalion more of Marines along with the Belleau Wood Assault Carrier Group. It seems New Alaska has gone from a backwater colony to a potential hub for military operations in this sector."

Tonya looked at the orders in detail now and scanned every page for important information. "So the NAARNG (New Alaska Army National Guard) is to assist in the defense of this planet, provide security for the resettlement camps of BuReset, and the refugee camps for these Colonials?" She then looked up at COL Patwin nodding as she spoke, "The Third of the Three Forty-Second will be doing their part along with sweeping for marauders. Those renegades have ravaged the Territory for over a year. Ever since BuReset began sending involuntary settlers here and to the other off-world territories marauders have been like a plague of locusts. Recently my own family's ranch was attacked by a band of these two legged coyotes. My daughter and I held our own against them. None of them lived to warn their comrades."

Patwin nodded looking sympathetic and responded, "There's nothing I or Homeworld Security can do about the marauder problem other than give a lot the Guard units on the various territories more weapons, supplies and equipment. You members of the National Guard out here on the Off-World Territories are our first line of planetary defense. We're still building up the Fleet and the Marines are building up their Planetary Landing Forces, but it will take time. At the moment with a dozen DSCs, four Planetary Assault Carriers which are essentially DSCs built to carry a battalion of Marines and their landing craft and fighter cover instead of being capital ships, and nearly two dozen of the redesigned BC-303s redesignated as Guided Missile Destroyers instead of Cruisers we are stretched thin. A DSC-304 or a PAC-305 takes twice as long to build as a DDG-303D, but with the fleets of the other permanent members of the I.O.A. and the newly added associate members Earth has enough to scout for these Cylons and to keep the Lucian Alliance minding their manners. Defense of the Territories still falls to detachments from Stargate Command for the U.S. and the other nations SGCs for their colonies. So local militias, like the National Guard will be bearing the brunt of the defense of Earth's colonial worlds for the foreseeable future."

Tonya nodded wishing that her retirement date was closer so she could pass this headache on to some other poor soul. "I guess the TAG; Major General Walsh will have a larger headache than the one I'm getting." Then she looked up at a series of old photographs going back over 150 years. One was of a tall young man in Union Uniform who looked like she would have as a Man. It was Sergeant William Tell Sackett of the Sixth United States Cavalry. The old tin-type was of him and his horse standing near the stables of Jefferson Barracks, Saint Louis, Missouri before being shipped off the Great Plains to fight the Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and other Plains' Tribes then at war with the Federal Government.

Tell Sacket had lived through the War Between the States serving in the Union Army believing that the Union was worth preserving. He extended his enlistment for another five years and served from Fort Sill in Oklahoma to Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Sometimes when Tonya Sackett looked at the old Sergeant she would ask herself what Tell would have done. In this case he would have helped the Colonials find a place on New Alaska to settle peacefully among the settlers from Earth and perhaps helped them to maintain law and order in their towns afterwards. Tell like his brother Tyrell, whom her brother was named for, often worked as a cattleman, a miner, and a lawman depending on what was needed at the time. In the end he was one of Colorado's richest ranchers, had married his second wife and had a whole passel of kids with her. It was from his oldest child Jubal Barnabas Sackett that Tonya descended from.

Every Sackett since Tell answered their Nation's call to service and she was no different. She enlisted during spring semester of her junior year of high school, spent her summer between the junior and senior year at the Army's Engineers' School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Later after she turned 21 she transferred into the Military Police which she completed her training just in time to be deployed to Panama in December of 1989. The next year her MP battalion was sent to Saudi Arabia and later in in 1996 they spent six months in Bosnia. When 11 September 2001 came around she found herself first on duty guarding an isolated airport in southwestern Colorado then doing security sweeps at the new international airport in Denver. When Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003 her battalion was sent there to help secure Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Two years later Tonya was a Captain and back in Baghdad commanding a company of MPs that were providing security to supply convoys. Another two years later she was doing similar duties in Afghanistan. Then two years after she returned from that tour she went back to Iraq as that mission was winding down under the Obama Administration. Then she came home and her request to transfer into the 117th Space Battalion had been granted. That was when she learned that her Team in the 117th didn't exist on the battalion's roster, but was in fact part of Stargate Command and had been since the defeat of Anubis toward the end of her first tour in Iraq. The National Guard Bureau's designation for her team then was Team Hotel of the 117th Space Battalion, but in fact it was SG-26 and she was the XO and later the CO before becoming the CO of the 3/342 IR.

"You know Colonel as a Captain and a Major I fought against rogue Jaffa, the Ori, Ba'al's forces, and the Lucian Alliance. Now as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a National Guard infantry battalion on our most remote off-world territory I'm fighting boredom and the occasional marauder band. Those guys by the way are getting newly made AKMs from somewhere." Then as Patwin was digesting what Tonya was saying now she opened a cabinet behind her and pulled out a Chinese made AKM and laid it on her desk. "These are of Chinese manufacture and some have their version of the Russian 40mm underbarrel grenade launcher on them."

Patwin picked up the weapon and saw that it had been stamped with the cartouches of a factory in Northeast China which was once called Manchuria. "Yes, Homeworld Security has been getting reports on these from not only the American territories, but the other ones as well. Someone is slipping these in through Atlantis or on Tel'Taks procured illegally from the Free Jaffa or the Lucians. President Ryan is pressing Congress for a budget to allow an increase in security forces at Atlantis with the emphasis being on preventing smuggling through the City-Ship. Now as for the other means of illegal shipping of these weapons that is just another of the many sticks the I.O.A. is using to try to break the back of the Fleet's camel."

"I see that Colonel, but with these Colonial refugees coming here and this unchecked smuggling of illegal arms from Earth things could get dicier here on New Alaska than they already are. Now you add in the possibility of an attack by these Cylons and even the Lucian Alliance then you can see my people are going to be busier than a one armed wall paper hanger," Tonya said as she folded the folder with the hard copies of her orders and stuffed them back in to the security document envelope before locking it away in her office safe.

After some more discussions on joint operations with the SGC troops on New Alaska and the NAARNG troops Patwin left. That was when Tonya called up her respective companies to tell them the bad news that demobilization was going to be delayed for a while. About the time she hung up from her last call she looked up to see her orderly with a tray loaded with sandwiches on a plate and coffee in a thermal carafe with her personal cup. "Thanks Sergeant, set it on that table over there," she said pointing to the one between the only two chairs in her office over by the fireplace. The orderly put the tray on the table and Tonya went over and sat down to begin planning her next operation. As she thought over the situation she ate a half a sandwich and drank some coffee.

_**CIC Galactica 270 days after the Cylon attack on the Colonies:**_

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta sat at his station monitoring the launch of Captain Kara Thrace's Search and Rescue mission back to Caprica. With the addition of the computer system cannibalized from one of the two captured Heavy Raiders using Sharon Agathon as the operator, Thrace speculated it would take just ten jumps to make the journey back to Caprica. Working with Petty Officer First Class Anastasia Dualla on Communications Lt. Gaeta was the Tactical Controller of the launch of the operation.

Behind Gaeta, standing at the Tactical Plot Table in Galactica's CIC Admiral Adama, Colonel Tight, and President Roslin monitored the operation as Capt. Thrace gave the order to make the first of ten jumps. Moments later all twenty Raptors assigned to Starbuck's mission disappear from the DRADIS screens over the Plot. "It's started, may the gods watch over Starbuck and all that go to bring out as many as they can of those trapped back home in the ruins of our worlds," Adama said looking up with a look of concern crossed with foreboding on his face.

Roslin looked up at the monitor as well steadying herself by holding onto the edge of the Plot table. Next to her Col. Tigh looked over to his friend of over twenty years another look of worry and dread on his face said, "So say we all!" Around the rest of the CIC dozens of those working there replied in response repeating the Colonial religious epitaph. Gaeta looked up and under his breath he said, "And so begins a journey of 2760 light years." Adama looked over at his Tactical Officer, "I couldn't have said it any better Mister Gaeta, not any better at all." Then Adama went back to planning the next phase of Galactica's part in this operation.

_**New Alaska System 270 days since the Cylon attack on the Colonies:**_

In the gas cloud surrounding the planet which its Tau'ri settlers call New Alaska a whitish-blue flash of light dissipates revealing a Colonial Raptor. Looking out the cockpit's canopy the ECO and the Pilot, Lieutenants Hamish "Skulls" McCall and Margret "Racetrack" Edmondson both shout out in surprise as they realize they're not where they're supposed to be. "What the frak?" Racetrack exclaims shocked and surprised as she none of the SAR mission's other Raptors were with her. "Skulls are there any of the others on DRADIS?" she asked looking to her right at him.

Skulls looked at his monitor and then back at Racetrack his eyes wide as Triad cards. His gaze was fixed to a point just outside the canopy of the cockpit. Just as he had looked at his monitor for the DRADIS an object appeared with an unknown IFF signature. "Hmm… no… but that just showed up…" Looking out the direction Skulls was looking Racetrack saw what he saw. There before her was a dark gray fighter with a two person cockpit, forward swept wings and two people in flight helmets and suits like you'd expect atmospheric pilots to wear.

_**Golden Goose, FA-302C Flight B 186**__**th**__** Tactical Fighter Squadron NAANG (New Alaska Air National Guard) flying Orbital CAP:**_

Captain Willow "Raven" Talon looked through the smoke colored ballistic lenses of her flight helmet right into the cockpit of the unknown shuttlecraft that Asgard Sensor, LIDAR, RADAR, AESA, and PESA arrays in Sitka, Joint Forces Base Ft. Sykes, and Juneau all detected a few minutes ago. Her Combat Systems Officer or CSO, the Rear Seater, First Lieutenant Axle "Grease" Rodgers had tapped into their coms and kept the Golden Goose off of the other plane's sensors.

Capt. Talon listened to the air crew of the other craft smiling knowing that those two didn't know that she heard and understood every word. After fifteen minutes of just sitting there with her wingman keeping the craft from escaping and listening in on their rather heated conversation Raven just clicked her mike and said, "I've been listening to both of you and your Marines in the back arguing whether to stay or return to your ship, the Galactica isn't it? Well I have a solution just follow me back to my base and you can talk to my commander Lieutenant Colonel Jason Parsons of the New Alaska Air National Guard about what happened and maybe our maintenance techs can figure out what caused your misjump. Oh and don't be jumping back to where you came from because our sensors are sensitive enough to detect both entry and exit points of any wormhole or hyperspace jump. All we'd do would be to follow you."

_**Racetrack's Raptor**_

Racetrack looked at Skulls then the fire team of four Colonial Marines in her cargo and passenger bay. The other five people in the plane with her all nodded indicating that they should comply with the fighter pilot's demands. Racetrack looked back and noticed a parting of one of the gas clouds and a planet appeared through the clearing of the gases. "Ok, we'll follow you down," said Racetrack with some resignation as she now saw not only the planet, but three other fighters just like the one ahead of her. These other three had her boxed in. "Umm… this is Lieutenant Margret Edmondson callsign Racetrack and with whom am I speaking?" She looked out at the other pilot and saw her lips move and less than a second later the words came over the wireless.

"_I'm Captain Willow Talon callsign Raven, now form up on me and follow me down."_ After that was said the fighter that was reminiscent of the First Cylon War era Raiders banked and headed for the planet. The other three fighters made sure she was herded behind the lead fighter. Racetrack noticed the readings from the sensor scans of the planet as the flight drew closer.

"Look at the readings Skulls," Racetrack said excitedly. She pointed to the atmospheric composition, the amount of water, and the albedo of the planet. It was cold, but people could and did live there. The looks on Skulls' face and those of the Marine Sergeant and Corporal looking over their shoulders said it all. This had to be reported back to the Galactica.

_**Gary Riley Military Air Field, Fort Sykes Joint Forces Base, Sitka, New Alaska:**_

LTC Tonya Sackett now found herself on the tarmac of the Gary Riley MAF on Fort Sykes. She had been called shortly after she had her lunch which had followed COL Patwin's meeting with her. Shortly after the call she was driven to the airfield on the edge of Juneau where a SC-306 waited for her. After sending her Orderly back to the Armory with orders for her XO to take over the Battalion while she was gone Tonya got onto the UH-60 sized Earth designed and built shuttlecraft.

The trip from Juneau downstream to Sitka took half a day by riverboat, a day by horse, two days by wagon, and only half an hour by shuttlecraft. The NAARNG had one battalion of SC-306As besides its one battalion of AC-306As (a gunship version of the SC-306). It was an NAARNG SC-306A that LTC Sackett rode to Gary Riley MAF where she was met by MG Benjamin Walsh the Adjutant General of the New Alaska National Guard, Brigadier General Garret Blaine Chief of Staff of the NAARNG, and Brigadier General Judith Dressler Chief of Staff of the NAANG.

With the senior officers of the New Alaska National Guard were Colonel Patwin, CO of Hotel Site and SG-25, Rear Admiral LH Danna Paulson XO and acting CO of JFC-NA. LTC Sackett met each one though she had been in meetings before with most of the US Armed Forces senior officers on New Alaska. "Good afternoon sirs, I was wondering just what was important enough to have me come down from Juneau…" Tonya began to ask, but the double sonic booms of five spacecraft entering atmosphere drew her attention skyward.

Tonya used her right hand to shield her eyes and she saw five dark dots on the distant horizon. As minutes passed the dots became recognized as four FA-302C attack fighters and an unknown type of shuttlecraft. The shuttlecraft was about the size of an UH-60 Blackhawk or perhaps the older UH-1 Iroquois. More minutes passed and the craft finally began their landing procedures.

The four FA-302s landed in a box formation around the shuttlecraft. The shuttle pivoted on its vertical axis as it landed so that its hatch on the port side of the craft faced the hangars and the officers gathered there. Once on the ground a squad each of Air Guard Security Force troops and Army Guard MPs rushed out to throw up a perimeter around the five craft. The Air Guard Second Lieutenant in command of the joint security force signaled for the welcome party to come forward with another squad of Army Guard MPs as an Honor Guard.

As they walked up to the alien craft an Army Major with JFC-NA rushed up from the nearby hangar and handed LTC Sackett another packet of orders, "Sorry for being late with these, ma'am. My staff just finished printing these off and running them over here. You and Colonel Patwin have a space voyage to take." Then before she could ask the Major anything he had turned away and was already on his way back to the hangar.

Now Tonya had a tan colored government issued documents envelope for each her and COL Patwin. On each envelope were stamped the epitaphs "Eyes Only" and 'Top Secret." Also there was written on each in a hand that used a Sharpie, "To be opened once in space!" She caught up with COL Patwin and handed him his packet saying, "I think we are going for a ride with the people on this shuttlecraft." Patwin looked at the front of his sealed envelope then his gaze shifted over to the Local Command Authority personnel.

"My guess is that we were assigned to this mission as soon as the Zoomies found these folks. I wonder how long Colonel Parsons will have them secluded here before we have to leave." Patwin said as he looked at the senior military commanders of the American forces on New Alaska. (Lt. Col. Parsons commanded the 186th Tactical Fighter Squadron NAANG.) Then he and LTC Sackett took their places next to the Generals and Admiral and waited for the occupants of the shuttlecraft to exit.

_**Inside Racetrack's Raptor:**_

Racetrack looked out of the canopy as she took off her helmet. As she saw the local troops take up positions around the local fighters and her Raptor she called back to the fire team of Marines, "Sergeant take up security positions around the Raptor when we exit her." She saw a group of officers take up a line similar to ones that the Admiral, the Colonel and Galactica's other senior officers did when the President visited the Bucket. Then there were two squads of troops taking up position just behind the line of officers.

Without glancing at Skulls, Racetrack got up from the Pilot's Chair and said, "Well let's do this." Her voice was flat as if she disliked going through ceremony, but was doing so because duty required it. She got up and walked to the hatch. A Marine Private activated the hatch's latch and it went up letting in the exterior natural light. One after another the crew of the Raptor exited with Racetrack leading them. After the Private and Private First Class that were the junior members of the fire team the Sergeant turned around and signaled that the Pvt. And Pfc. were to take up security positions at the front and back of the Raptor. As Lt. Edmondson and Lt. McCall walked toward the line of local officers and troops the Sergeant and the Corporal fell in behind them.

_**American receiving line Gary Riley Field, Ft Sykes, New Alaska:**_

Generals Walsh, Blaine, and Dressler, ADM Paulson, COL Patwin, LTC Sackett stood in the front rank as four of the occupants of the shuttlecraft walked up to them. Tonya Sackett of the Flag and Field Grade officers was the only one armed and in combat gear. She had just come from another operation against marauders this morning and had not put away her weapons or other gear before the SC-306 picked her up.

Tonya looked very much like the black uniformed Marines with the two aviators only her uniform was in the Multicam pattern the Army and its reserve component units have used since the mid-2000s in Afghanistan. In her case she wore the latest version of the MICH helmet, an armored tactical vest, and her field pack. She even had shouldered her pack after getting off the Army Guard SC-306. To the casual observer she looked like she was ready to lead another operation.

The female aviator came up to Major General Walsh and introduced herself while rendering a smart professional military salute, "Lieutenant Margret Edmondson Colonial Fleet, permission to come aboard?"

MG Walsh returned the salute and said smartly and professionally, "Major General Benjamin Walsh New Alaska Army National Guard and Adjutant General of the New Alaska National Guard, permission granted. Welcome to the United States of America's Off-World Territory of New Alaska Lieutenant Edmondson. Let me introduce the Chief of Staff of the New Alaska Army National Guard Brigadier General Garrett Blaine, the Chief of Staff of the New Alaska Air National Guard Brigadier General Judith Dressler, Read Admiral Lower Half Danna Paulson United States Navy and Joint Forces Commander New Alaska, Colonel Neil Patwin United States Army Commander SG-25 and Commander Hotel Site Joint Operations Center, and lastly Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Emily Sackett New Alaska Army National Guard and Commander of the Third Battalion Three Forty-Second Infantry Regiment (Light). Lieutenant Edmondson we're expecting a small fleet of Colonial ships carrying survivors of the holocaust your people suffered recently, but they haven't made it here yet. The ship escorting them is only going as far and as fast as the ship with the lowest rated Colonial FTL can travel so we were expecting them about now. Are you with this fleet? It's also escorted by the Colonial Fleet Gunstar Achilles."

Lt. Edmondson introduced her ECO Lt. McCall, the two Marines, Sgt. Richard Talbot and Cpl. Randi Sloan then said, "No sir, we were supposed to be part of a Search and Rescue mission back to the planet Caprica, but we misjumped and wound up in orbit of your planet. We're off the Colonial Fleet Battlestar Galactica which along with the Colonial Fleet Battlestars Pegasus, Valkyrie, and Rashomon guards a refugee fleet of seventy five ships carrying roughly sixty thousand survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol."

MG Walsh looked at the other officers and then back to Lt. Edmondson, "Lieutenant let's get out of this cold into a more appropriate and warmer place to discuss things." Then he gestured over to the hangar fifty yards to the west of the landing area.

Racetrack nodded and with an overhand wave she signaled for Lt. McCall and the Marines to fallow her and the local officers. The parties walked the distance into the warmer air of the hangar. Inside the hangar Racetrack saw several shuttlecrafts that were a little larger than her Raptor, but smaller than a Cylon Heavy Raider parked within. There were some craft where ground crews were pulling maintenance on them and others that were just resting on their landing gear waiting for their aircrews to use them. Also in the hangar she saw sixteen of the fighters like escorted her down to the surface.

For an hour and a half there was a Q and A session with the Flag Officers, COL Patwin, LTC Sackett, and Lt. Col. Parsons. Parsons had been tracked down and brought in just as everyone entered the briefing room or Pilots' Ready Room of his squadron. He shared the hangar at Fort Sykes' Gary Riley MAF with the 303rd Shuttlecraft Battalion and 230th Attack Battalion of the NAARNG and the 370th Transport Squadron of the NAANG. Parsons was actually on squadron business when the runner found him in the Supply Warehouse arguing with a Navy Chief Petty Officer as to why his hyperdrive spare parts where still in their crates in the CPO's warehouse and not in his Maintenance Flight's own warehouse waiting to be installed into four of his eight FA-302Cs.

Needless to say when he came into the Pilots' Ready Room he was still steamed over the intransience of that Navy CPO that ran the Joint Forces Supply Warehouse. He was still fuming over the incident when a sharp look from the TAG caught his attention. So from there on he paid close attention to the debriefing of this Lieutenant Edmondson, her ECO Lt. McCall, and the two Marine NCOs with them. Then it dawned on him from the conversations between these people and his S-2, Captain Wade Collins that these officers and Marines weren't from Earth. Wanting to know more he leaned so he could as the Army Guard Lieutenant Colonel in combat gear what was going on.

"Lieutenant Edmondson, her Raptor and crew misjumped on their way to rescue some civilians left behind on one of her people's homeworlds, a planet called Caprica. It seems nine months ago a machine race their ancestors built returned after a forty year ceasefire and attacked their nation the Twelve Colonies of Kobol wiping out their civilization and killing most of fifty or so billion people. Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett by the way," the NAARNG LTC said as she held her hand for him to shake.

"Lieutenant Colonel Jason Parsons, I command the 118th Fighter Squadron," Parsons said as he took her hand and shook it. Then he sat back and listened in on the debriefing occasionally asking questions of the pilot her, rear seater and the Marines. His private thoughts were that Earth just gained a new Ally and a new Enemy.


	2. Chapter 2

30

**Northern Lights**

_The New Alaska Chronicles_

By

Denise Hemmingway

**Chapter Two**

_**Gary Riley Field, Ft Sykes, New Alaska:**_

The interrogation and debriefing finally finished and Colonel Neil Patwin, Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett, Major Andrea Main (COL Patwin's XO) and Second Lieutenant Helena Sackett (LCT Sackett's elder daughter and a member of the 256th Public Affairs Detachment) found themselves in the back of Colonial Fleet Lieutenant Margret "Racetrack" Edmondson's shuttlecraft called a Raptor. With them in back were the four Colonial Marines that were assigned to Edmondson's Raptor for the SAR mission to Caprica.

In the cockpit were Edmondson and her ECO (Electronic Countermeasures Officer) Colonial Fleet Lieutenant Hamish "Skulls" McCall. Racetrack looked back at the four Tau'ri soldiers assigned to go with her to make contact with the Fleet and to verify her discovery. "You all ok back there?" she called back over the ship's intercom system. The Colonial Marines signed all was ok as did the Tau'ri soldiers. All four of the Tau'ri were in their version of BDUs, but they called them ACUs or Army Combat Uniforms. Only the Colonel's was a different camouflaged pattern than the other three. They also were wearing body armor and carried their weapons. This was for their own protection, not to intimidate the Colonials when Racetrack got them back to the Galactica.

Racetrack turned to look out at the military airfield she landed on the same four Tau'ri fighters were also going to escort her to orbit. _"Racetrack, Riley Field Tower are you ready for take-off?"_ called the Air Traffic Controller from the tower. Racetrack looked at her instruments all read optimal, "Tower, Racetrack ready for launch."

"_Racetrack, Tower you are cleared for launch; you may launch with Flight Bravo One-One-Eight,"_ said the ATC.

"Roger Tower launch with Bravo One-One-Eight, Racetrack, out," Edmondson said. Then she worked her controls, adjusting her thrusters, working her attitude and altitude. For her the Raptor raised slowly into the air, but to those watching from the tarmac apron in front of the hangar it looked as if she shot up into the atmosphere almost if not faster than the F/A302Cs of B Flight 118 Fighter.

From inside the cargo and passenger bay of the Raptor LTC Sackett watched the icy blue of the sky change to inky black. It was like watching someone paint a wash of light blue on white paper with water colors followed by a deepening wash of black ink speckled with various pieces of multicolored glitter and light washes of yellowish greens and yellowish oranges as they passed from New Alaska's atmosphere into the nebula. "Wow, that was cool," said Helena Sackett. "I never thought I'd ever actually get into space. I grew up watching the shuttle missions and other space launches of our nation and other countries that were televised."

_**Racetrack's Raptor in space above New Alaska 270 days after the destruction of the Twelve Colonies:**_

Racetrack announced to the leader of the flight of Tau'ri F/A302C Aerospace Attack Fighters that she was ready to make her jump back to the fleet. _"Roger that Racetrack, Tell the ground pounders with you that our prayers go with them and also with you. See you when you get back. I hope you all can find a home here, Raven, out,"_ said Captain Willow "Raven" Talon over the wireless.

Racetrack looked back at Skulls at the ECO station. "Skulls, is the FLT spun up and the jump coordinates inputted?" she asked. He said yes and gave her the thumbs up. Looking now over to where LTC Tonya Sackett sat next to her not ceasing to wonder at Sackett's uncanny resemblance to Starbuck, Racetrack asked, "Are you ready Colonel? I take it this is your first FTL jump?"

Tonya had exchanged places with Skulls after the Raptor broke atmosphere. Now she was watching the swirling gases of the nebula against the back drop of space. Like her daughter, still in the passenger and cargo bay, Tonya was awed by the flight up from the surface of New Alaska. She had been on other planets before, but never had traveled in space. This was her first spaceflight. Hearing Racetrack's question she looked and replied in Athenian Greek, "Yes, jump your ship when you're read Lieutenant."

Racetrack nodded as LTC Sackett had answered her in what sounded like Caprica City accented Caprican. She turned back and signaled to Skulls to initiate the jump. Skulls answered by saying, "FTL jump in five… four… three… two… one…" Then Skulls turned the Raptor's jump key followed by pushing the initiation button. The sight of the nebula and New Alaska disappeared into a bright whitish-blue light. Also the ship looked like it stretched and retracted back to its normal size.

When the light faded away to reveal the black of space again LTC Sackett stared in wonder at the array of ships before her. Largest amongst them was a giant at least five times the size of a DSC-304 and its spin-off the PAC-305. It resembled a giant space going whale with outrigger flight pods where the pectoral fins would be. "God that is one big ship," 2LT Helena "Lena" Sackett said over her mother's shoulder in English. Her voice was dripping with amazement.

Racetrack didn't understand the words of the slightly younger officer, but she recognized the awe and shock of someone seeing their first Battlestar. Racetrack pushed the preset for Galactica's LSO's (Landing Safety Officer) frequency, "Galactica, Racetrack we had a misjump and request to speak with Galactica Actual before landing."

_**Galactica's CIC after Racetrack's Raptor returned to the fleet:**_

The Comms Officer on duty looked up from his station after the LSO forwarded the message from Racetrack. "Sir, the LSO says that Racetrack is back and wants to talk to you," he said to Adama. Adama looked around toward the Comms Officer and said, "Put it on the overheads!" Adama ordered.

"Racetrack, Actual you're back early. What happened?" Adama asked in a tone that demanded an immediate answer. He looked up at the speakers that were part of the rig that held the DRADIS monitors over the Tactical Plot Table. Then he looked over at the Comms Officer as he adjusted the Communications Console controls. "Anytime now Lieutenant or do I have to bring Dualla back from the Pegasus?" Adama asked irritated.

Then as a look of victory came over the Lieutenant's face Racetrack's voice came over the overhead system, "Actual, Racetrack we had a misjump. According to logs we had erroneous data inputted into our jump computer. We found a world where we wound up. It's inhabitable and in fact there're people already there, over!" Excitement filled her voice.

"Come again Racetrack, you found a world with people on it? Was it a Cylon concentration camp from the First War?" Adama asked as he looked up at the speakers with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. "Are you sure you found people this far out from the Colonies?"

"Yes Actual, we found them and um or rather they found us," said Racetrack's voice over the speakers of the overhead console. About that time Lt. Gaeta yelled out about detecting unusual energy readings on his DRADIS which he put up on the monitors over the Plot as he alerted Adm. Adama to the anomaly.

Adama looked up at the screen and four small blips surrounded Racetrack, "Racetrack get out of there we've detected the arrival of unknown fighter sized ships! Get your bird home ASAP!" Adama shouted up to the overheads. He thought that they were about to be attacked by a flight of Cylon raiders. "Gaeta, have the fleet jump to the emergency coordinates," Adama yelled to the Tactical Officer.

"Actual, Racetrack, hold one those are from the people we met! Their fighters have some form of FTL different than ours! I guess this was my escort from the planet. The Tau'ri, a race of humans, call the planet New Alaska. I think that's because the planet is kind of cold like a place on their homeworld which is farther coreward from here," Racetrack's voice came over the speakers. Adama looked over at Col. Tigh with a look that said launch the ready Vipers.

_**B Flight 118**__**th**__** Fighter Squadron NAANG:**_

Cpt. Willow "Raven" Talon listened in on the calls between Racetrack's Raptor and the smaller of the two larger ships with the fleet. As she watched the fleet floating there suddenly several of the smaller ships and the slightly larger big ship started disappearing in bluish white flashes of light. She checked her sensors and saw that the ships had only traveled a distance of about twelve light years.

Raven switched from monitoring the frequency that Racetrack was talking to the commander of the smaller of the larger ships over to where she could take part in the conversation. "Racetrack, Raven would you introduce us to your boss?" she asked over her helmet's headset. She looked through her gray polarized lenses at the bug like Raptor and the whale like starship which looked like it had been through the mill and then some.

"Raven, Galactica Actual here where are you from and how did you find us?" said the voice of a man that sounded like he's shouted orders in stressful situations many times. Raven smiled as she could tell a man that had led people in combat and had fought himself to protect his people just from the tone of his voice as well as she could tell that this man expected to be answered and answered truthfully.

"Galactica Actual," Raven began speaking the dialect of Greek she learned when stationed at a NATO airbase in the Greek Isles. "I'm Captain Willow Talon my callsign is Raven. I command the flight of F/A302C Starfighter II Aerospace Attack Fighters escorting your lost Raptor home." She looked though her lenses at the large ship trying to imagine just what Galactica Actual looked like. He sounded mature and strong.

_**CIC Galactica:**_

"Raven, Actual where did you come from?" Adm. Adama asked while looking up to the monitors showing the DRADIS readings. He saw that the four ships were keeping station while the blip for the Raptor kept coming toward the Galactica.

"_Actual, Raven we came from New Alaska the planet that Lieutenant Edmondson found. I was picked to escort her because I could talk with her and her crew without the need of a translator device. That is the same reason behind sending the people she's bringing with her. We speak our homeworld's version of your language,"_ Raven said her voice coming over the wireless speakers of the CIC.

"Is that planet your homeworld?" Adama asked.

"_No sir, it is our farthest colony rimward of our homeworld," _Raven said back, her voice even and clear. _"Sir if we could we would like to land our birds? We'll need to ready them for our return trip. We're to act as expert pilots to lead you back to our planet if your people decide to take the offer Colonel Patwin will be presenting," _Raven added.

Adama looked over to his XO who was giving him the stare that said, "_This is a Cylon trick._" The President and Vice-President came in about that time and from their looks had overheard the conversation with Raven. "Raven, Actual I'm Admiral William Adama commander of the Battlestar Galactica and the remnant of the Colonial Fleet and Defense Forces. You will follow the directions of our LSO and land in the port flight pod. We'll meet you and your other representatives in the port hangar bay."

Adm. Adama looked back toward the Comms Officer and with great control over the rising anger at having a surprise dumped upon him in the middle of a rescue operation and a Presidential Election said, "Lieutenant connect me with Racetrack on a secure link! Do it now!" Then he turned the handset he had been using just as a microphone and turned to use it as a transceiver. He looked back to the Comms Officer again who signaled that he had the connection.

"Racetrack, Actual let me speak to your passenger, Colonel Patwin. Give him a headset or a handset. I don't want the others on your ship to overhear him and me talk," Adama said as he looked from the DRADIS display to his XO and finally the President and Vice-President. Racetrack told him that he now had a connection to Colonel Patwin. The next voice Adama heard was that of a male.

"_Admiral Adama, Colonel Neill Patwin, I represent the United States of America. I'm a Colonel in the United States Army and command a detachment and base of Homeworld Security Command on New Alaska. My party and I were sent to open negotiations with your military and civil authorities. We hope to work out a means by which your people can settle on our planet. We only occupy a small part of the western continent and we have lots of room and can accommodate more people settling in our area,"_ the man calling himself COL Patwin said to Adama over the handset. Then he added, _"We already know what happened to your homeworlds. One of our ships on a routine exploration patrol entered your primary system during the attack on your colonies. Currently that ship is escorting a small fleet of refugees to New Alaska." _Adama looked across the Plot to President Roslin and Vice-President Baltar. He shifted his gaze to Col. Tigh next.

President Roslin had been listening in on another handset on the other side of the Plot. With a gesture she asked that Adama let her speak to COL Patwin. Adama with a similar movement of his hand had the Comms Officer make Roslin's handset active. He nodded to her indicating she could talk now. Roslin composed herself then took a deep breath. Sighing she let out her breath and began to speak, "Colonel Patwin what world does your people claim as your homeworld?"

There was a long silence then the static of the wireless broke with his voice over the ear pieces of the handsets the President, Vice-President, Adm. Adama, and Col. Tigh, _"Though other human races in those regions of space known to us call us the Tau'ri which translates to 'The First Ones' we are human and our homeworld is called Earth. This is not a strategic secret as most of our enemies and friends know the location of our planet by now. That being said we have a few dozen colonies we have access to both by spacecraft and by a device left to us by the first race of humans to walk the worlds of the Milky Way Galaxy. That race was known to us first as the Ancients, but we learned over time their true name was the Alterans."_

President Roslin swallowed hard at hearing this piece of news and again composed herself before asking, "Colonel what do your people know of the planet Kobol and the Lords of Kobol?" She looked up at the DRADIS display the blip that was Racetrack's Raptor was near to merging with that of the Galactica.

"_All we know is that Kobol was the home of your ancestors according to interviews done with the fleet that the USS George S. Hammond is escorting to New Alaska. As to the Lords of Kobol they sound like either the Goa'uld who pretended to be gods to enslave humans and other sentient races or the Asgard that did the same only with the desire to protect our brethren and others. However the Ancients may have had a faction that after the Goa'uld had enslaved much of Earth's people nearly ten thousand years ago took humans from Earth to a planet as a refuge. We are only speculating here, but it is one possibility. You see our history is full of holes and we have learned over the last couple of decades or so that it is in fact much older that we knew,"_ Patwin replied letting them know what he learned during the time he served with Stargate Command and Homeworld Security Command.

It was Adama that spoke next, "Colonel you and your people will stay with your Raptor until me, the President, Vice-President, and my XO are in Hangar Bay Beta of the Port Flight Pod." Then he turned to the Comms Officer and said, "Lieutenant link me to Raven again." The Lieutenant did that and let the Admiral know the connection was made. Adama looking up at the DRADIS called back to Flight B's leader and said, "Raven, Actual follow Racetrack to the landing deck of the Port Flight Pod, follow the directions of the LSO, and then wait with your ships after they've been parked in Hangar Bay Beta of the Port Flight Pod. Then you will wait with Racetrack, her crew, Colonel Patwin and his party for me and the senior members of our military and civilian leadership. Afterwards we'll go the Galactica's War Room to discuss what to do next."

"_Actual, Raven roger that,"_ Cpt. Talon said in reply.

_**Hanger Bay Beta, Port Flight Pod, CFB Galactica 270 days after the Attacks:**_

Racetrack looked out her cockpit and saw that the four Tau'ri fighters had also landed safely. They had been brought down and maneuvered into empty maintenance bays in the Hangar Bay. She took off her helmet and looked back over her right shoulder at the people in the jump seats in the cargo bay. "Ok folks were home," she said as if she really meant that this ship was her home, which she did.

Sitting in the Co-Pilot's seat since landing LTC Sackett looked out at the maintenance crews in their orange jump suits working on several dart shaped fighters with triple mounted maneuver drives similar in fashion to the four F/A302Cs the Air Guard pilots flew from New Alaska to here. Though the fighters looked deadly they didn't look large enough to house their own hyperdrives or even the FTL jump drives like Racetrack had in her ship. There were two basic models of ships on the hangar deck. One had an angular framed canopy and the other had a molded dome like canopy. "Lieutenant, what are those?" Sackett asked pointing to the fighters.

"Colonel those are Mark Two and Mark Seven Vipers, our Space Superiority Fighters. When I'm not a Raptor Driver I fly one of the older Mark Twos," Racetrack said with unabashed pride as she pointed to one with her name and callsign stenciled on the side just under its angular canopy. "That one there is mine; she's a dream to fly and her cannons hit frakking hard and accurate." Sackett nodded as her daughter caught the ships on her handheld digital video camera. Helena also had a digital recorder running capturing the dialog for her later notes.

"Excuse me Lieutenant, but I think we can get off my bird now," Racetrack said as she worked her way back to the hatch that was located on the port side of the small multipurpose shuttle. She got out followed by Colonel Neill Patwin, Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett, Major Andrea Maine, and Second Lieutenant Helena Sackett. Then the Marines and Skulls got out. As they waited for the Admiral and his Command Staff to form up along with a squad of Marines as an honor guard the aircrews of the four Tau'ri fighters formed up with COL Patwin's party. There was Cpt. Talon, four First Lieutenants, and three Second Lieutenants.

Racetrack called the formation to attention and marched them over to the waiting welcome party. She then stood to one side as Colonel Patwin approached the Admiral, saluted in a militarily professional manner, and said in something akin to Caprican that Racetrack learned was called Greek, "Colonel Neill Francis Patwin, United States Army, permission to come aboard sir?"

Adm. Adama looked at the tan skinned soldier in the dusty green, gray, and sand colored combat uniform and loaded tactical vest. He was armed with a carbine similar to the standard Colonial Fleet issue assault carbine and a pistol similar to the lighter one issued to the Fleet's officers. On his head was a ballistic nylon helmet covered with a cloth cover in the same pattern as his uniform. Adama saw a slight scar on the man's face that ran left to right in a downward slash across the bridge of the man's nose and onto his right cheek. There was a black badge with a wreath and two stars surrounding a rectangle with an old fashioned flint lock rifled musket on it just barely visible under the left strap of his vest.

On his right shoulder was a patch with an upside down V with a small circle over the tip imposed over a planet against the background of space. This was all surrounded by a circular arch with symbols of what looked to be constellations on different panels. This patch just had the letters SGC embroidered in a rectangular box at the bottom. On the other side was a similar patch with the letters SG followed by the numerals 25. On tab on the front of his uniform was a black badge in the shape of an eagle with its wings spread.

In the eagles beak there was a banner. In one talon there were clasped a bundle of arrows and the other an olive branch. There was a stylized shield imposed over the breast of the bird with some stars and some alternating vertical stripes on its face. Adama decided he would give this man a chance and just as crisply as COL Patwin did he returned the salute and said, "Rear Admiral Lower Half William Adama, Commander of the Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Group Seventy Five, and the reconstituted Colonial Armed Forces. Permission to come aboard is granted."

The whole time the little ceremony was going on work on the nearby Vipers and Raptors had ceased as Deck Crew and Pilots looked over where the squad of Marines, Major Kara Thrace, Captain Aaron Kelly, Colonel Saul Tigh, Vice-President Gaius Baltar, President Laura Roslin and Admiral William Adama stood greeting the people who came with Racetrack form wherever it was that she misjumped to.

After Adm. Adama gave COL Patwin and his party permission to come aboard he introduced the Colonel and other officers to the President, the Vice-President, his XO, his LSO, and his CAG. At the end of the greeting line he turned to COL Patwin and said, "Colonel if you, your XO, Lieutenant Colonel Sackett and Second Lieutenant Sackett would come with me so we can talk about this offer Captain Talon told me over the wireless you have to give us in the War Room. Captain Talon and her pilots and rear seaters can stay and oversee the servicing of their planes."

COL Patwin nodded, and then took off his helmet signaling to the rest of his official party to do the same. "That sounds like a plan Admiral," Patwin said as he fell in beside the Admiral. Behind them Roslin and Baltar fell in beside each other trying to eavesdrop on whatever the Admiral and this Colonel were talking over on the way to the War Room. Behind them Colonel Tigh fell in beside Lieutenant Colonel Sackett and asked, "What is your job in Colonel Patwin's command Colonel?"

Sackett looked at him smiling, "I'm his security escort and will be the Liaison Officer with the Colonial Armed Forces and civil government if you all accept the offer Colonel Patwin was assigned to bring to you from the International Oversight Authority, the President of the United States of America, General Jonathan O'Neill the Commander of Homeworld Security Command, Brigadier Samantha Carter of Stargate Command, Rear Admiral Lower Half commanding officer of the Third Deep Space Carrier Group, Governor Wallace Moore of New Alaska, and Major General Walsh the Adjutant General of the New Alaska National guard."

"What's the offer Colonel, mind you we're just talking casually one Colonel to another?" Tigh asked as the group walked through the labyrinth of companion ways, over knee knockers, up ladders and through hatches to get to the War Room which at this moment was guarded externally by an eight man squad of Marines led by their Senior NCO Gunnery Sergeant Erin Mathias. Adama stopped the group after asking her to open the hatch and let them enter.

As the group was entering LTC Sackett looked Col. Tigh in the eyes and said, "I will let Colonel Patwin present the offer and negotiate the details with your Admiral and President. I don't want to compromise this proposal. I would like if your leadership approves to go over with you and other senior officers the details of your organization and capabilities of your forces. I need to know this so I can best advise my commanders on how to integrate your forces into the defense of New Alaska if your people agree to settle there."

Col. Tigh looked her in the eyes in return and his jaw dropped a little in shock and surprise and he mentally digested what the Tau'ri officer said. "Why would your people offer us a chance to settle on your colony? Why not let us settle on your homeworld?"

"Colonel, Earth, my Earth has over seven billion people living on it and the IOA nations feel that even what survivors of the Colonies we find would be lost within the crowd and lose their cultural identities. What we offer is a chance to join with the rest of humanity and still retain your religion and cultural identity. You see Colonel when my ancestors left to settle the western continent of Earth from the western portion of the eastern continental mass we displaced the native human population. Many died on both sides with the natives suffering the most from disease, war, and famine. We don't want that to happen again. When we found other human populations on other worlds after our leaving our home system," Sackett said as the two of them entered the large operational command center known as the War Room, "we as a people decided not to repeat the mistakes of the past. So the IOA nations agreed only to colonize worlds without native human populations. New Alaska is such a world. Now let's take our places as Colonel Patwin presents the full presentation to Admiral Adama and President Roslin."

Col. Tigh nodded surprised that LTC Sackett said as much as she did thinking that it may have given him too much intelligence on the proposal that COL Patwin was about to offer. That was when he noticed the junior officer with the video camera and digital recorder making a record of the proceedings. "Colonel Sackett, why is that officer shooting video of this?" Col. Tigh asked.

LTC Sackett looked back 2LT Sackett and smiled, "Second Lieutenant Helena Sackett is my daughter and a Platoon Leader in a Public Affairs Company back on New Alaska. Her mission is to record these proceedings so that the people back home know what's going on out here. You see, we only recently, like within the last few years let the people of Earth know that we've been into space outside our star system and have built faster than light starships. We're trying to keep the average Tau'ri supporting our efforts out here."

"Ah so she's making a propaganda piece?" Tigh asked. As he saw 2LT Sackett, who he thought resembled a younger version of the now retired Admiral Helena Cain. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties. He saw that she held the camera with its built in monitor flipped open to one side. He slid up behind the junior officer to look over her shoulder. He saw she was taking different angle views of everyone now in the War Room. Luckily she wasn't taking clear views of the plots on the War Room's Plot Table. The SAR mission to Caprica plots were on the table at the moment because the Admiral was still monitoring the operation. 2LT Sackett was actually only concentrating on the faces of the people from both her party and from the Galactica. At the moment the Lieutenant was focused in on Vice President Baltar. Tigh leaned in and whispered into her ear, "If you want additional footage Lieutenant Sackett, we're in the midst of an election for our President at the moment. After we're done here perhaps you can interview President Roslin and Vice President Baltar on the progress of the Election."

2LT Sackett glanced over her shoulder at the Colonial Colonel and said, "Yes sir, thank you sir that sounds like a good opportunity to let my people see that in some ways your people are similar to ours. You see back home many of the world's governments are in one form or another, a democratic republic though there are some that are still autocratic dictatorships. We on New Alaska are a newly settled territory and are vying for statehood in a few years." Her Caprican was a bit accented and had some strange diction, but Tigh understood her clear enough.

In the same level of voice that he began the conversation Tigh continued and asked, "Territory? Statehood? What do you mean by this Lieutenant?" Tigh was still gathering cultural and hopefully military intelligence from the members of Colonel Patwin's party as the President and Admiral asked him.

Concentrating on Vice-President Gaius Baltar she zoomed in and caught him talking under his breath to someone not there. "Colonel a territory is what my nation, the United States of America, calls its colonies. Unlike other nations we don't settle or establish authority over distant lands or planets without giving the chance to either gain or regain their independence, remain a territory with limited self-rule, or become a state within the Union with limited sovereignty." This time she looked at her monitor and then over to Baltar. On the monitor there was a statuesque attractively seductive blue eyed, platinum blond woman in a red form fitting dress that had a built-in bra. It was the sort of dress that Helena would have worn to one of the nicer bars in Sitka, Juneau, or Nome. For the one in Sackett's Creek she would have just worn her faded jeans, cowboy boots, and gray 5x felt cowboy hat with either a cowboy shirt over a camisole or with a long sleeved waffle weave tee-shirt in the colder months when inside. She just wouldn't have thought to wear such a dress to even this place. The other woman must have a limited wardrobe even though she has some sort of device that is keeping her from being seen by the naked eye.

Helena didn't know that Virtual Six had let herself be seen on her camera and likewise be recorded hovering over Vice President Baltar's shoulder by the Tau'ri camera operator and media officer. Virtual Six looked over from where she stood leaning on Baltar's left shoulder with her right arm draped around his neck. She slowly turned his head so he could see 2LT Sackett, the daughter of the woman that was an older double for Kara Thrace. 2LT Sackett, or Helena as her mother called her, looked like a twenty-something version of the now retired Helena Cain.

Cain on the day Baltar gave the Colonial Fleet Issue heavy sidearm to Gina Inviere had been shot in the back by the said Cylon. This shot did not kill the Admiral, but left her paralyzed from the waist down. Helena Cain afterwards was first made Roslin's Secretary of Defense and later became part of the Tauron delegation to the Quorum of the Twelve. The woman across the War Room's Tactical Plot table resembled Quorum Delegate Cain as she would have looked just out of the Academy. "She's pretty isn't she Gaius?" V-Six said whispering into Baltar's left ear her face so close to it her breath tickled him. The words came out like molasses on a cold day and a bit breathy. All Baltar did was to nod his head as the Tau'ri Colonel laid out the proposal for settlement on New Alaska instead of continuing on to Earth. His eyes were locked on the young female Tau'ri media officer and not on the Colonel and his presentation.

To Baltar COL Patwin's voice was just part of the background drone as his concentration was actually split between V-Six's attentions and watching the young Earth-born female in her country's combat uniform videoing the proceedings in the War Room. She was as shapely as the Tauron Admiral who she resembled in a younger sort of way. She also lacked the facial blemish that was over Helen Cain's right lip. Helena Sackett's skin was blemish free and colored by long hours in the sun of either her new world or her old one. Her hair unlike Adm. Cain's neck length pageboy cut was possibly longer and put up in a roll behind her head.

_**270 days since the fall of the Colonies, Cylon Occupied Caprica:**_

Multiple bluish-white lights flashed into existence over the ground of a canyon on a dirty brown planet with dirty gray clouds floating in the skies over the devastated and blasted land. After she recovered her senses Kara looked around scanning to see if she could get a headcount of the Raptors that were part of her mission. "SAR, Starbuck sound off!" she said over the wireless frequency assigned to the mission.

At the ECO station Lt. Karl "Helo" Agathon sat watching the DRADIS. His wife Sharon Agathon, a Cylon Model Eight similar to the late Jr. Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valerie sat next to him in the rear compartment of their Raptor. Counting them, Lt. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, and the fire team of Marines on this Raptor there were seven people in the little spaceship. Counting this Raptor there were, or were supposed to be twenty Raptors in the mission each with at least a Pilot, an ECO, and a fire team of four Marines.

"Frak me!" Helo called out after scanning the DRADIS for Colonial transponders, "One of our remaining birds came out of Jump within the heart of a mountain! Damn it what do we do now Starbuck?" Helo looked over to her his eyes as wide as Triad cards. Cursing to herself Starbuck looked out at the gray lit landscape cursing the Cylons for the attacks, cursing her luck.

"We continue the mission we still have eighteen Raptors. We continue to the rendezvous point," Starbuck said as she slammed her hand into her thigh cursing again at the dumb luck of it all. They had lost Racetrack's bird on the first jump away from the Galactica and Pegasus. Now another came out of the last jump inside one of the mountains that made the wall of the canyon. "Frak, Starbuck to all SAR birds continue the mission!" She looked around with a mixture of frustration and foreboding and just said, "Frak!"

_**270**__**th**__** Day since the Cylon Attack and Occupation began, Rebel Basecamp:**_

After the bombing of the building that housed Sharon Valerie's apartment and the local café frequented by the Cylon Occupation Forces humanoid models Sharon and her new friend Caprica, a Model Six, had slain the Model Three that was birddogging them and helped the leader of the Caprican Human Resistance to escape from the rubble of the underground parking garage.

Before the rescue teams made their way to Sharon and Caprica they told Sam Anders to escape through the tunnels and find his forces. Afterwards they had tried to convince the Collective that the war against the Humans was wrong. Only problem was the Three was one of the first to resurrect after the bombing. She had turned all but a few Eights and Sixes and a couple of Twos against Sharon and Caprica. The small force of Rebel Cylons made it to the Human Resistance's base camp and exposed the Four that was hiding as the former Caprica City Buccaneers' team doctor and the One that took on the role of a priest of Zeus.

One looked at the leaders of the small band of renegade Cylons and said, "Sisters and Brothers Caprica and Sharon are right we've sinned against our god and those of the humans. We, my model especially were overconfident in our own superiority. My time with these humans has shown me that we as a race were in error." Then he said something else, "I would to say; The woods are lovely, dark, and deep," and then he looked at the other dozen Cylons and their reaction. First their faces went slack with a blank expression.

Next each of them including the Four replied in a monotone unison voice, "But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep." As soon as the response was out of their mouths the dozen or so human form Cylons other than Reverend Cavil fell to the ground. Finally he could begin to deal with his overbearing elder brother the one that killed his loving artistic baby brother, Seven.

John looked over at his Father Sam who also had been awakened by the trigger phrase that he had put into the code wall that his arrogant, stupidly overconfident, homicidal brother had put on all the models including their makers when he held his little coup over thirty years ago. Now all he had to do was find his little brother Seven and the rest of his mothers and fathers.

Caprica Six and Father Sam were the first to recover and it was Sam that yelled out to the rest of the resistance, "Stop don't shoot my sons and daughters; these individuals are only guilty of following my eldest son's orders!" He held up his right hand palm facing his team mates and other members of the resistances. As he blinked to clear his head and concentrate on the rush of memories flooding back to him he looked at John and realized this was one of the younger copies of his eldest son. "John, where's your brother, my murderer?"

John looked at Father Sam and said, "Dad, John is on the Galactica acting like he's their chaplain. I think he was on Picon with Mother Ellen when our fleet bombed the planet." John was serious and yet sad in his tone. "I think he's trying to sabotage the escape of the survivors of the attacks."

Sam nodded then he looked John straight in the eyes, "John do the rest of your brothers and sisters know where we are?" Sam gave John a look that said, 'Tell me the truth you little frak or I'll do to you what I'm planning to do to your brother." John saw that Father Sam was pissed and had the fire of vengeance in his eyes.

John sighed and let out a long breath. Then he took in a new one before saying, "Yes father, they know and are coming soon to wipe out all of you. That includes you Caprica and Sharon. My brothers with the Collective still here in the Colonies and some of the other models still think it is and was a just thing to destroy the Colonies and kill of humanity. I know this was wrong and having staid here with you father has shown me that not only was John in error, he was also insane."

Sam looked at this copy of John and asked, "Why did you awaken us?" He was confused now as he was still getting his memories to mesh together. He remembered playing Pyramid from high school through college before going pro and eventually becoming the team captain of the Caprica City Buccaneers. He also remembered using the Colonial Fleet Marine Corps Reserve Officer Training Corps to help pay for his college. It then dawned on him all his memories prior to high school were fake except for those he had escaping Earth with the other five and eventually finding the Colonies and contacting the Colonial Cylon.

John saw that his father Sam was recovering his memories and had come to realize just what happened all those years ago. "Dad, John killed you, Fathers Saul and Galen, and Mothers Ellen and Tori along with brother Seven, Daniel. He had me take Daniel to the world humanity lived on before Kobol. He was a young baby then. Like you and the all my brothers and sisters except for my copies John put a memory block on him. Only I know where his soul surviving copy is. I will lead you and the Colonials to him and the real Earth. I only ask that you take me and these brothers and sisters I've freed with you." John looked at Sam, his eyes pleading with his father as did his voice.

As soon as he said those words the banshee scream of a Cylon Raider caught everyone's attention as one flew over on a recon pass. Sam took the initiative and yelled, "Everyone arm yourself and get to cover! We need to get away from here now!" He then kicked open with all his rediscovered Cylon strength the lid to a weapons case that held the Colonial version of a shoulder launched SAM or surface to air missile. He took up the weapon that resembled the old Soviet SAM-7 got a good track on the Raider as it circled back. In the optics of the launcher he saw the sights come together and lock on to the aircraft. He had good tone so he fired.

Having fired the only shot he tossed to the tube aside and ran for the stairs that led to the warren of tunnels under his old high school. He grabbed the Four that was the team doctor and said, "Come on Doc we need to get out of here now! I'll talk to you and John later about what you were doing with us, but now if you want to live come with me!" He had a feeling that if they were killed they wouldn't be allowed to reenter Cylon society. He was pretty sure there were standing orders to box those that went against the Collective. As he headed toward the underground passages more Cylon Raiders filled the skies and began bombing the campus of the old high school.

As a missile landed near the stairwell that led into the basement and later the maze of tunnels that was their way out from the old building complex and exploded just as the door closed behind Sam. Ahead of him were the remnants of the Caprica Buccaneers, some of his Marine Corps Reserve MP unit, several civilian survivors and survivalist. Mixed with them were a few dozen Twos, Sixes, and Eights along with a One and a Four. Damn it he thought as he herded everyone that was able out of the complex through tunnels they had only just found. The facility under the high school must have been a shelter during the First Cylon War and now if they didn't make it out through this tunnel the place would become their grave rather than their shelter.

Thinking as they passed through the area that served as the groups HQ and mess area he grabbed one of the Colonial Marine Corps issue manpack long-range wireless sets and shouldered it using the harness attached to it. He and his raiders had hit a CMCR supply bunker and recovered a lot of First Cylon War weapons, radios, computers, and other gear that had been prepositioned and stored just in case the Cylons returned. He thought he would try to raise Starbuck on this using the prearranged frequency they had set up.

_**270 days after the Cylon Attacks and Occupation began, a forested area in the Atlas Mountains outside Delphi:**_

It had taken over an hour to get to the old bunker complex from the previous war that Sam's team in the Resistance had found just before they met Helo and Starbuck. Later before Starbuck had been captured in the ambush a week later the two of them decided the complex would be a place to meet when she returned to rescue them. It was more secure than his old high school and nearly forgotten about by the people of Caprica. Most likely the current Cylons didn't know of it either. Sam had looked at current military topographical maps and the complex wasn't even on them. So he marked it only on his copy and kept that hidden under his shirt in a folding map case.

Two hours after relocating to the underground bunker complex, Sam led a team made up of his closest team mates from the C-Bucks, John, Sharon, Caprica, and one of the Twos. Leo, the Two looked at the others and said, "Father Sam, John, Caprica, the rest of you understand this one of my copies has frakked with Starbuck just as one of the Fours did. I also think she killed a Six when she escaped from the Farm. We need to take this carefully and ease her into the fact there are now Cylons on her side and that dad here is a Cylon." Then Leo looked at the rest of the C-Bucks and said, "We can deal with this issue later after we're all of this rock!" His tone of voice was like an order that said without saying that's it for this topic so shut it.

Starbuck left half the Marines and pilots to protect their Raptors. She took the rest including Helo and Sharon, Helo's Sharon with her to meet up with Sam and whoever is left of the resistance. It had been several weeks, maybe months since she and Helo escaped with Sharon piloting the Heavy Raider. A lot could have happened in those weeks. It took them two hours to quietly and safely reach the prearranged rendezvous site. She heard the snap of a twig and halted her group and signaled for them to fan out to cover their flanks just in case. She then signaled for everyone to get behind cover and under concealment.

Starbuck gestured for Helo to make contact. Helo crouched looking over a deadfall cedar tree that rivaled the size of the ones in the Redwood forest of Earth's California. "Do you have a Samuel Anders with you?" Helo shouted just loud enough to be heard in the deathly still forest.

A woman replied, "Do you have Kara Thrace over there?" Helo just looked at Starbuck and shrugged. He held his revolving grenade launcher at the read just in case Centurions showed up. He also had besides his sidearm, a Colonial issue assault carbine loaded with armor piercing rounds. This was slung by a three point tactical sling so he could swing it forward if needed. As he covered Starbuck; Helo signaled for the Marines and the Raptor crews that came with them to watch their flanks and front.

Starbuck remained ducked down behind the fallen Caprican Redwood in the Heracles Colonial Forest. A worried look was on her face. So far the operation's success was touch and go. She screwed up her courage and shouted the challenge, "C…Bucks Rule!" She then scrunched down as low as she could go and grimaced hoping that Sam would remember the other half of the challenge and password they agreed on.

On the low ridge just fifty yards above the fallen tree Starbuck's force was hold up behind Sam Anders and Bo Jay were crouched down behind a boulder. Sam had his back against the rock and was looking back the way he and the remnants of his band of rebel Cylons and human resistance fighters. This morning they had started out from the old CMC bunker complex only to walk into an ambush of Centurions half an hour ago. Before the ambush he had close to 200 fighters between his human and Cylon soldiers. Now he was down to just fifty. That was a force of thirty humans and twenty Cylons most of whom were a mix of Sixes and Eights.

To Sam's left was Bo Jay his old team mate and second in command. To his right was Caprica Six. Each woman was armed with stolen Colonial Marine Corps issue assault carbines. Bo Jay's had a 40mm underbarrel grenade launcher. As Sam contemplated giving the password Caprica and Bo Jay looked at him and their facial expressions as good as said, "Say it Sam, just frakking say it." Sam screwed up in courage then turned so he could face the direction of Starbuck's position and shouted, "Picon Panthers are Pussies!" Then he jumped up and fast walked down the slope toward the fallen redwood.

As Starbuck's group came out from behind the fallen tree Sam saw an Eight with her. Likewise Starbuck saw several of Sharon's model and of the same model as Shelly Godfrey. Besides that there were five Leobens, one that looked like Major Simon O'Neill the lead surgeon on the Hospitalstar Aegle, and another that looked like the civilian chaplain on the Galactica Father John Cavil of the Temple of Zeus. "Sam, since when do you allow Cylons to bear arms in your command?" Starbuck said looking at the twenty or so skin jobs standing with her lover.

Sam ran up to her and hugged her as she said this. "Kara I have a lot to explain, but we don't have the time right now. We need to get to your ships ASAP!" With that said he broke his hug and looked back the way he and his people came from. "Back that way there are about five hundred Centurions and about fifty of the Sixes that are their overseers." Kara, Starbuck looked into his eyes seeing real fear in them and he was almost at the end of his rope. Her troops offered his only hope to get out of this frakked up situation.

"Lieutenant I'm John Cavil. I'm a Cylon Model One. Father Sam here speaks the truth. My brothers and sisters still loyal to my twin in your fleet have forces scouring these woods for Father Sam, we renegade Cylons and these few surviving humans that have done their best to live free or die trying. I was sent to find Sam's weaknesses and instead I found he had great strength. Doctor O'Neill here was sent to Caprica to watch over Sam. Now Simon here wasn't involved with the Farm that you were held in. His mission was to be Sam's watcher. After I hid among some of the survivors that flocked to Sam's resistance groups I began to learn that humans weren't the failed creations my brother thinks you all are. Once in Sam's forces I became their spiritual leader and learned what it truly meant to be human. My brother John failed in so many things the biggest of which was the destruction of your homeworlds and the murder of your people. When Sam and our other creators made us they made the human form Cylons to be able to learn."

Starbuck looked at the old man looking Cylon male, "So have you learned enough to know what your people did to us was more wrong that what my ancestors did to yours?" He started to speak, but she held her hand up indicating that she wasn't quite through speaking and she said, "I'm not excusing the fact that the Colonies when they made the early Cylon models used them as slave laborers and slave soldiers. We basically used and abused our creations. Admiral Adama and I have talked over this on many an evening in his office on the Galactica since the fall of the Colonies. All we want is to live free of the Cylons and to build ourselves a new civilization far from here."

Cavil smiled and he felt in his deepest being that this human also had learned what was of true value. "Kara Thrace you are enlightened well beyond your years and perhaps what my brother Leoben here said is right you are destined to lead us all out of this mess." Then he looked up hearing the whine of Raider engines and pushed Thrace to the ground saying, "They're here take cover everyone!"

Kara rolled out from under Father Cavil and pointed her carbine sky ward trying to get a good aim on one of the attacking Raiders, but the overhead canopy of trees was just too thick. She looked then over to Sam knowing that Father Cavil as good as said her boyfriend was a Cylon, but that frakking didn't matter right now. Right now what she and Sam had to do was get these people, hers and his back to the Raptors and get the frak off this rock.

"Listen up everyone we're going to fire and maneuver using bounding over watch to get back to the Raptors. That means one team runs forward back the way my people came as the rest cover for them. We do this in teams of four. Once one team is set in cover and concealment they signal for the next team to take a position beyond theirs. We do this leap frogging over each other all the way back to the Raptors. Rules are if it shows chrome shoot it. If it looks like the Sixes here but dressed too nicely for the woods shoot it. If it flies itself and shoots at you kill it. Am I understood?" Starbuck said loudly as she loaded a magazine of armor piercing explosive rounds into her 7.62 millimeter carbine. She looked to her right and left catching each fighter, Cylon, Colonial survivor, Colonial Marine, Colonial Fleet Aviator.

The people as individuals each gave her a look of determination. It was Caprica Six that said, "Let's get this traveling meat market on the road I don't want to die just to be boxed by that lunatic's brain washed followers." With that Caprica jacked an armor piercing round into the chamber of her own Colonial issue 7.62mm Assault Carbine having just replaced a partial magazine with a full one.


	3. Chapter 3

**Northern Lights**

_The New Alaska Chronicles_

By

Denise Hemmingway

**Chapter Three**

_**280 days after the Cylon Attacks and the fall of the Colonies:**_

2LT Sackett and her mother were monitoring the Presidential Debate between President Laura Roslin and Vice President Gaius Baltar. In her case she was the only Earth born media person on the Galactica or even in the Colonial Refugee Fleet. From her gear she had hooked up a portable subspace transmitter console so she could send footage back to New Alaska.

There the Colonial Presidential Debates were being broadcast, cablecast and webcast on The Armed Forces Network and New Alaska Public Television. From New Alaska it was beamed over subspace to Earth and disseminated to Earth's news operations broadcast, cable and on the web. In the ten days since their arrival in the Fleet from New Alaska HWSC, SGC, and I.O.A. had sent three SG teams to act as security for a team of Election Observers and Monitors.

Through negotiations between each campaign it had been decided that only Earth's military and civilian observers would be impartial. Admiral Adama went along with this as it freed him and his forces to do their primary mission, protecting the fleet. So the Fleet's military continued watching for Cylons and running the internal security of the Fleet.

Helena Sackett felt as she watched the debate through the monitor on the side of her Sony NEX-VG20H Interchangeable Lens HD Camcorder that the Former Secretary of Education that was filling out the final months of her predecessor was a better choice. Baltar reminded her of politicians and others that were all flash and no substance back on Earth. In her deepest being she hoped that Laura Roslin will win. It wasn't that the issue of settling on New Alaska was going to decide this election.

That issue had already been negotiated out with COL Patwin and her mother LTC Sackett. In fact those negotiations ended yesterday. As far as settlement went the issue was whether the people of the Colonies settled on New Alaska in their own community or integrated themselves into the United States Territory of New Alaska. In fact the two candidates were debating the two options as she shot her footage of the event.

So far Roslin supported integration into the existing Earth colony on New Alaska and Baltar supported an independent settlement for the survivors of the Twelve Colonies. The debate mostly was over this division between the current President and her Vice President and political opponent. Settlement of the Colonials on New Alaska will happen regardless of which candidate won, but if Baltar won there would be an independent New Caprica, which the I.O.A. nations would have to recognize as a sovereign nation. If Roslin won she would stay president just long enough for the settlement to begin. Then she would resign and dissolve the Colonial Government.

The civilian population of the survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol would then integrate into the population of New Alaska, settling into existing cities and towns or starting their own. Secretly most of the Tau'ri on the Galactica and surveying the other ships of the Fleet hoped that Roslin won, but it wasn't their place to affect a favorable solution in this election. The Tau'ri had to remain neutral observers and work to improve the conditions of the people in the Fleet.

One thing that aided her in covering the Election and the Fleet was the cooperation of a Colonial Fleet News Service correspondent named D'Anna Biers. Biers reminded her of Lucy Lawless from the Blu-Ray disks of Xena: Warrior Princess and other old television appearances in other series in mother's collection back at Sacketts' Ranch. It was enough to make Helena wonder if something was going on or if the genetics of humanity sometimes made copies even if they were born worlds apart from each other.

_**281 days after the Cylon Attacks and Occupation began in a ruined abandoned concrete building.**_

LT Kara "Starbuck" Thrace watched out through a hole in the reinforced concrete wall at the woods and underbrush of the forest. The Centurions had her rescue team, Sam's resistance fighters, and Caprica's rebel Cylons pinned down in the ruins and surrounding dead fall trees and rocks on this small hill. They had reached the hill an hour after she and Sam met up in the woods over five miles away.

The going had been rough with the pursuing Centurions and Cylon Sixes, but they managed to keep their forces intact. Now Starbuck had a call out to the Raptors to send a courier back to the Galactica for reinforcements or some sort of air cover. Starbuck watched the skies and prayed to the gods for some sort of relief. Across from their defensive position a bright flash of flame and a thunderous explosion of noise filled the air as something impacted amongst a couple dozen Centurions. Pieces of chrome plated robots were flung in every direction and the head of a decapitated Six fell between her and Sam. That explosion was immediately followed by dozens of others as the roar of fighter engines screamed through the air above.

Overhead Cpt. Willow "Raven" Talon looked out through her canopy at the woods below as here rear seater 1st Lt. Daniel "Specks" Chantry read out the coordinates of an artillery battery. "Raven we have a lock on the battery," Specks announced over their intercom. She looked at her heads up display seeing that the targeting computer had a lock on the radar guidance system of the Cylon missile battery raining down death on the Galactica's SAR team. She smiled like a lioness seeing an old wildebeest on the Serengeti.

"Bravo One Magnum!" yelled Raven over the flight's radio frequency as she squeezed the trigger on her joy-stick. Upon that action her F/A 302 C jumped up with the launch of an AGM-88 HARM missile as it dropped from her weapons bay and fired its motor. She watched the track of the missile as it trained in on the Cylon targeting radar or DRADIS as the Colonials call their sensor system. Within seconds she was rewarded with an explosion that destroyed the Cylon DRADIS system guiding their artillery fire.

"Bravo One to Bravo Birds Guns! Guns! Guns!" Raven yelled over their push as she dived in on a set of four self-propelled missile launchers that resembled the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System or MLRS used by the US Army. Only these units had a head like protrusion with a shallow V shaped eye that had an oscillating red light swinging to and fro. She had selected her 37mm Railgun automatic cannons for this kill because the Asgard based plasma weapons degraded in atmospheres. As she fired her cannons fired their projectiles at hypersonic velocities the naquada enhanced depleted uranium warheads penetrated the hulls of the missile tracks causing secondary explosions that ripped apart each multiple missile launcher. Behind her Striker her wingman fired up another battery of four MLRS tracks.

On their left Gopher and Digger tore up two more batteries. Then the four F/A 302 Cs made a sweeping turn and targeted more Cylon positions as their rear seaters picked them up on their planes' sensors. "Starbuck, Raven sorry we're late, but your FTL is slow. Had we known you people were in trouble we would have been here sooner rather than later. Now just make yourselves as small as you can, we're about lay down some rather heavy ordnance on these Toasters of yours."

Starbuck picked up the handset of the manpack wireless set one of her Marines had on his back and looking to the skies above the canopy of trees she responded, "Raven, Starbuck roger, who the hell are you guys? Never mind that we can talk later just take out the Bullet Heads and their skin job handlers for us! Over." Then she poked her carbine out through the hole in the wall and shot up a charging Centurion. As she fired this one up the dirt around the rest of the rushing Toasters erupted into fountains of dirt and fire as some fighter strafed the company of robot soldiers.

From their arrival in the forested region her flight had found Starbuck's people in Raven's flight of F/A 302 Cs were busy. It was a target rich environment and Raven was in her grove. In the first fifteen minutes between ground targets and the Cylon fighters called Raiders and their transport-gunships called Heavy Raiders her birds had fired up all their bullets and missiles and dropped all their bombs. Now they only had their Asgard based plasma weapons. "Raven to all Bravo Birds, Beams… Beams… Beams…" she called over their push as her weapons monitor alerted her to empty magazines for her railguns and empty weapons bays.

D'Anna had looked on from an observation post on a high ridge overlooking the position that Father Sam and his renegade Cylons and humans had taken shelter with a rescue party from the Galactica led by Lieutenant Kara Thrace. Her anger was growing as the four new human fighters that resembled First Cylon War era Raiders even after they burned through their weapons and ammunition still were able to deal damage onto her forces. The Resurrection Ship over head was going into overtime as it was taking in the dozens of Model Sixes killed by the humans.

D'Anna picked up the handset of a stolen Colonial Marine Corps wireless manpack set. "Starbuck, D'Anna you and your people are free to go for now. Your friends in those God damned fighters have destroyed too much of my force for me to hunt you down. Mark my words though we'll see each other again. Trust me I have something special planned for you when next we meet!" In anger she slammed the handset into the hand of the Five that was her assistant commander.

Then D'Anna took her sidearm and shot one of the Twos with them. That Leoben fell to the ground his brains scattered across the back of a nearby Centurion. Now she had to face John and the rest of the Collective's Council. Through the binoculars she had with her she saw Starbuck, Caprica, Boomer, Sam, and the people with them withdraw into the woods. After the last of them disappeared from sight D'Anna turned saying, "It's now up to the Cylons in the Fleet to ensure their demise. Let's finish cleaning up the remnants of the Resistance. Then we'll track the humans to where they're hiding."

_**282 Days after the Cylon Attacks and the fall of the Colonies:**_

The SAR team, the remnants of the Caprican Resistance and the Cylon rebels all reached the SAR team's Raptors by daylight. As Starbuck herded her people, humans and Cylons into the rides a radio call came over her tactical radio. "Starbuck, Raven good luck and see you back in your barn," said the lead pilot of the four alien fighters that were sent to assist her.

As Starbuck, Sam, Helo, Sharon, her pilot, her Marines, and Father Cavil loaded into her Command Raptor with Caprica, Boomer and Leo (one of the surviving Rebel Twos) there were bright flashes of light around them. The light faded to reveal several combat ready troops in multi-colored earth tone camouflaged patterned BDU like uniforms. Before she could close the hatch one of the soldiers ran up to her and shouted at her in what sounded like an accented dialect of Caprican, "Captain Thrace, I'm Colonel Neil Patwin United States Army. My troops will secure your LZ long enough for you to evacuate. Now once in orbit head for a ship that resembles a small Battlestar. That's the USS Intrepid. It's one of ours. Now get your ass of my A. O. Captain and we'll see that you get back to the Colonial Fleet."

Then eight more of the fighters like yesterday screamed overhead and explosions could be heard in the distance. COL Patwin looked at Starbuck and added, "Those are our Three Oh Twos they're an Attack Fighter capable of space or atmospheric combat. I have a company of light infantry with me to guard your evacuation. Don't worry about us we'll be gone after you're airborne not get this piece of shit Raptor of my LZ and out of my AO!" With that said the Colonel turned away from Starbuck who didn't even have the time to respond to him as he went back to ordering his troops into defensive positions.

Father Cavil looked at Starbuck and said, "Captain Thrace get in the Raptor and follow that Colonel's orders. We're having our asses saved by the Thirteenth tribe. We'll talk this over with your Admiral Adama and whoever represents the Thirteenth when we get to the Galactica or after we board this Intrepid he mentioned." Starbuck nodded, climbed up into the Raptor and closed the hatch. She worked her way to the pilot's seat and looked back at Helo.

"Is Sharon ready Helo?" Starbuck asked as she looked at the Cylon that had been the Fleet's prisoner since her return from Roslin's mission to recover the Arrow of Apollo. Helo she saw looked at his wife. The Cylon that looked like Boomer looked back at Helo nodding. Helo gave Starbuck the thumbs-up signal and nodded.

"Ok, Everyone we're going to orbit this time and rendezvous with this USS Intrepid or whatever that Colonel called it so hang on to something and take a seat, this elevator's going up!" Starbuck called back as she activated the vectored thrust engines of the Raptor and headed skyward. She looked out her canopy to see the Colonel directing defensive fires into the woods beyond the LZ. Then the ground grew farther and farther away and the daylight changed into the star spangled darkness of space.

Over the operational push for the SAR mission Starbuck heard a woman's voice say, "Starbuck, Intrepid Actual lock on to my beam and follow the instructions of my Air Boss. He'll direct your birds to land in our starboard flight bay. How do you read, over?"

Boomer sitting in the Co-Pilot's chair and wearing military pants, a long sleeved Henley pull-over shirt under a police style tactical vest pointed to their starboard front and said, "There, that dark gray ship! That has to be the Intrepid! Man that Colonel was right it does look a lot like a small Battlestar!" Starbuck saw what Boomer was pointing towards and was a bit startled when a bubble of bluish white light flashed around the ship as it looked like a missile exploded not far from the ship.

Reverend John Cavil came up behind Starbuck and Boomer, "Ladies it looks like my brothers and perhaps D'Anna have found our chariot. We had best get aboard her soon so she can jump out of here!" Then he jerked his head with a start as the ship answered the attack on it with four beams of bright bluish white light. John, Starbuck and Boomer each followed the four beams to their target and one of three new generation Basestars was sliced by two of the beams as the other two punched through or rather burned through the armor and hull of the central column of the ship.

As soon as the beams exited the far side of the central pillar of the Basestar there was a tremendous explosion that ripped the ship to shreds. Pieces of the Cylon capital ship flew off in every direction as a cloud of expanding burning gas enveloped it in a death shroud. As the oxygen burned away the flames faded, but where the ship had been was only a debris field. The other two ships just stepped up their missile bombardment of the Intrepid, but the small ship had its analog to the Colonial KEW guns firing in such a rapid fire only a few of the Cylon antiship missiles even got close enough to impact the ship's shields. The Raiders on the other hand were being killed by two flights of fighters similar to what covered their retreat from the surface.

There were explosions ahead of the multiple waves of Raiders that took out most of the fighters ahead of them. It was like the ships had taking shotgun blasts to the face and their organic AIs died. Those ships were just drifting forward on ballistic trajectories with no one at the helm. Shock was registering on not only the Rebel Cylons' faces, but on those of the Colonials like Starbuck and Helo. Boomer asking nobody particular said, "What did they use that killed so many Raiders at once?" About that time an artificial sun was born where one of the other two Basestars had taken up an attack position. The explosion was so huge that the other surviving Cylon ship was engulfed in the nuclear powered fire and it too exploded.

"Starbuck, Intrepid Air Boss, get your birds on my deck ASAP! Approach the opening of the Starboard flight bay! Hands on and you call the ball!" said a male voice in accented Piconese over her headset.

Starbuck replied, "Intrepid Air Boss, Starbuck, roger Starboard Flight Bay, Hands on, I have the ball!" Then she piloted the Raptor toward the starboard side of the Gunstar sized ship that was still firing on more Basestars that had arrived to stop her escape and perhaps destroy her ride out of here.

In minutes Starbuck's Raptor and the others in her mission were landed and parked either on the deck of the Starboard Flight Bay or the Port Flight Bay as there was room for only half her ships in each plus a small squadron each of the Intrepid's fighters. She and Boomer did post flight checks as a Marine looked out the view port on the portside mounted hatch, "Captain Thrace, they're doing flight operations on a deck opened to space without vacc-suits!"

Helo looked up from the Electronics' Console, "Relax Sergeant, I picked up an energy reading as we passed through the portal of the flight bay's opening. They've got some sort of shielding that is keeping atmosphere in and for the most part Cylon bullets out."

"You've got to be frakking with us Helo!" shouted Starbuck from the Pilot's chair. She looked out into the Flight Bay and saw several knuckle draggers going about their business either securing Colonial Raptors into maintenance bays or rearming and perhaps refueling their First Cylon War Raider like fighters. Starbuck was amazed that none of them wore a spacesuit. They all just wore regular work coveralls while the pilots were wearing only their flight helmets and flight suits similar to those worn by pre-fall atmospheric pilots on the worlds of the Colonies. Then she looked back toward the front of the flight bay and saw that indeed the doors were open to space. She watched wide-eyed as one of the Intrepid's fighters flew out to resume operations and an aura of bluish white light surrounded it as it passed through the energy barrier that kept the atmosphere in the flight bay.

_**Starboard Flight Deck, Starboard Flight Bay USS Intrepid 282 days since the fall of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol:**_

Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett had been picked up by the Intrepid after it and the Essex had rendezvoused with the Galactica, Pegasus, Valkyrie, Yashuman and the Colonial Fleet. Now she stood with a small honor guard of US Marines and Major Andrea Maine. Her daughter Second Lieutenant Helena Sackett was back with the Fleet doing interviews of various people important to the survivors of the Colonies. When LTC Sackett was assigned to go on this mission with COL Patwin and MAJ Maine her daughter had finished interviewing Laura Roslin, Admiral William Adama, and Commander Leland Adama, Vice President Gaius Baltar (that man, made LTC Sackett shiver with a feeling that he was not to be liked or trusted). Today she was interviewing retired Colonial Rear Admiral and Quorum Delegate from Tauron, Helena Cain. "At least Helena has the more interesting duties this time around," groused LTC Sackett under her breath as she waited for the Colonial Fleet Aviators, Colonial Marines, and civilians disembarked from their planes.

Temporarily Virtual Six had left Gaius to his own devices or was it his vices. It didn't matter as V-Six was intrigued by LTC Sackett of the Tau'ri. She was an attractive woman with a look like a mature and perhaps more serious version of Cpt. Thrace. So she tagged along unseen with Colonel Patwin's party when the USS Intrepid went to the Colonies to recover Starbuck and her SAR mission. V-Six also found that she was attracted to Tonya Sackett in her own way. She hovered around the Tau'ri Army officer as she stood in her multicam ACU combat utilities waiting for Starbuck and company to get off the Command Raptor.

V-Six decided that she would still haunt Baltar, but for now she would let LTC Sackett know of her presence. So she leaned so close to Tonya's left hear she was almost touching it. V-Six took in a breath and then in a breathy whisper said, "Don't look around, and don't draw attention to you or me. None of the others will see me unless I want them to. For now only you and Gaius Baltar will know I exist. Baltar thinks I'm a projection of his guilt or perhaps from some sort of device the Six on this Raptor implanted within his head. Actually I'm like Oma and the other Alterans."

"If you're an Alteran, why are you taking an active role this affair?" Tonya said under her breath as she watched first four Colonial Marines in their black combat utilities exited the Raptor and took up security positions around it. Then she saw first the Cylon prisoner known as Sharon Agathon gets out followed by Karl Agathon. They were in turned followed by a man that looked like Brother John Cavil of the shrine to Zeus on the Galactica and another copy of Sharon. Lastly a woman that in her looks reminded Tonya of the Canadian actress and model who played roles on Burned Notice and NCIS: Los Angeles back a few years ago followed by a woman that looked like she did in her college and ROTC days back in Colorado.

"I see you've already guessed the two Asian looking women and the older Caucasian man are Cylons. Well the younger taller Caucasian man who's following Cpt. Thrace out of the Raptor is one of the creators of the humanoid models though at the moment he's not aware of that past. The other one is the model for whom I was the template. Her name is Caprica and she was the lover and confidant of Gaius Baltar," V-Six said. "Now the woman in the Colonial flight suit is Cpt. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace. Your family and hers are distantly related. Her ancestors were taken from the same village as some of yours came from over ten thousand years ago by my branch of the Ancients."

"Why are you telling me this?" Tonya asked under her breath as Cpt. Thrace walked over to her with the others following. Without looking at the Alteran standing just over her shoulder Tonya waited for the Colonial officer to approach.

Starbuck saw a woman with black oak leaf pins on her hat and on a tab on her uniform jacket standing to the left of another woman with green oak leaf pins in the same places. This woman had an air of authority and command about her, so this was who Starbuck approached and rendered a salute to saying, "Captain Kara Thrace, Colonial Fleet Aviation, call-sign Starbuck requests permission to come aboard, sir!"

LTC Sackett called her detail to attention then returned the Colonial Captain's salute saying, "Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett, United States Army, New Alaska Army National Guard, no call-sign, permission granted." Then she called the detail to parade rest. "Welcome aboard the United States Ship Intrepid Captain Thrace. If you and your people will follow me we'll see that all of you are given quarters for our flight back to the Galactica and the rest of the surviving Colonial Fleet. If anyone wants something to eat or drink the Ship's Mess is being kept open. Afterward we can debrief everyone."

Kara looked at the woman swearing that she could be her in a few years if she doesn't die or something first. "Yes sir," Kara said then she looked at her people and said, "Ok people as the Lieutenant Colonel said follow her and we'll be fed then they'll debrief us." Looking at Sam, John Cavil and the other Cylons Kara shrugged and said, "I guess you all should come along too. Perhaps you can give an idea of what we're facing out there."

With that said the survivors of the rescue party and the resistance followed LTC Sackett into the Ship's Mess. Sackett nodded to Major Andrea Maine and the O-4 began directing the Army and Air Force security personnel in getting the Colonials and Rebel Cylons seated. Sackett stood at the end of the Ship's Mess closest to the serving line and cleared her throat. "Ahem," the Colonials and the Rebel Cylons all turned their attention to her and she said, "I and a few others are the only ones that won't need a translator device to interpret for us or you, but should you want something to eat or to get something to drink later the ship's communication system has been programmed to translate your speech for you when you confront a member of this ship's crew that doesn't speak Caprican or Kobolian. In my case and Major Maine's we both speak dialects of the language that Kobolian and Caprican are based on. From what we can tell from talking with the people on the Galactica Modern Greek is as different from Caprican as the Earth languages of Italian and Spanish are to each other. That is we are mutually intelligible. Not being a linguist I find that a bit strange that languages separated not only by time, but by space should so closely develop, because unlike Italian and Spanish several thousand light years kept the Greeks and the Kobolians apart."

Looking over the group of Colonial Marines, Pilots, Caprican Resistance fighters, and Cylon Rebels Sackett now got to the meat of her impromptu speech. "Now the serving line is open. Most of the food is Earth fair from my home nation, the United States of America." On the serving tables there were warming pans of hamburgers, frankfurters, tacos, French fries, onion rings, and tater tots, and cold pans of dill pickle spears and chips, sliced and diced onion, sliced and shredded lettuce, diced and sliced tomatoes and fruit cocktail. There were packets of mustard, ketchup, mayo, and taco sauce along with salt and pepper packets. In GOTT thermal jugs there were batches of tea, lemonade and iced water. In other thermoses there was coffee, both decaffeinated and regular and hot water for hot tea. Next to the hot water thermos were two trays. One had black tea bags and the other had green. Then there were packets of sugar and powdered creamer. She gestured for them to get trays and cups and food, "Now get what you want then we'll start the debriefing of you all."

Seeing that none of the rest of her party willingly got up to try the Earth foods, Kara took the first step and took a serving tray that wasn't that much different from those on the Ship's Messes and Mess Halls of the Fleet, the Fleet prior to the Cylon attack and the end of the Worlds. She took a set of service, a napkin, then a hamburger and a frankfurter on a bun which the Mess Attendant called a Hot Dog. To her it was a mixed meat sausage on a split bun. She noticed that Sharon was the next person to brave the Mess Line as she continued and got some of the French fries and dressed her sandwiches with onion, pickles, and tomatoes before getting a serving of the mixed diced fruit.

After she got her food and sat the tray on the table she was sharing with Sam, Helo, Sharon, John, and Simon she went over to the table with the hot drinks and got a cup of Earth coffee. She hadn't had coffee in months, well not real coffee anyways. The freeze dried crap they called coffee on the Galactica now was an insult to the beverage. She saw that there were condiments for hot beverages on the table such as packets of sugar, an artificial sweetener, and powdered creamer. She decided to drink her coffee black. As she walked back to the table with her coffee she saw that Sharon got herself two cups of hot water and one each of the tea bags. By this time all the Colonials rescued from Caprica and the Cylon Rebels that came along with them were going through the serving line getting food and drinks.

Sitting at the table the aroma of the coffee was exciting Kara's senses as she smelled the scent of roasted coffee beans, the fresh onions and tomatoes, and pickles. "MMMM…" she moaned as she took in the smells of food that wasn't made from textured proteins. "Gods, it's been a long time since we've had real food in the Fleet. It's been almost a year since I've tasted real food or coffee."

Sharon sat across from her at the long table with Helo next to her. Sharon took a bite of the folded flat bread sandwich the Earthers called a soft taco. She had not tasted such spices before, not in the meat or in the sauce she poured from the packet onto the middle of the taco. "Oh god Helo this is good…" she was nearly lost in a sensory overload as the tastes and smells of food, that didn't come out of either a packet of textured food proteins or a Fleet Emergency Ration packet, hit her tongue and her nose at the nearly the same time. By this time all the Cylons and their former Colonial enemies were in a state of bliss caused by the food and drink provided by the Earthers.

Standing at the side of the room next to each other LTC Sackett and MAJ Maine smiled as they discussed the effect the food and drink provided by the Ship's Mess was having on their guests. "Now as soon as they are settled in and eating we'll start the debriefing. I find people talk best when they're fed well and treated nicely, don't you?" said Sacket to Maine while watching the table with Lt. Thrace, Lt. Agathon, Sharon, John Cavil, Samuel Anders, and Simon O'Neill sitting with each other. There was tension still between the Colonials and Cylons at that table, but the group there represented the leader ship of the Cylon and Colonial resistance to the main Cylon Collective. Sackett leaned over to Maine and whispered, "We'll begin with Kara Thrace and those at her table."


	4. Chapter 4

17

**Northern Lights**

_The New Alaska Chronicles_

By

Denise Hemmingway

**Chapter Four**

_**USS Intrepid, Mess Hall 282 Days since the Cylon attacks on the Twelve Colonies:**_

Standing at the side of the room next to each other LTC Sackett and MAJ Maine smiled as they discussed the effect the food and drink provided by the Ship's Mess was having on their guests. "Now as soon as they are settled in and eating we'll start the debriefing. I find people talk best when they're fed well and treated nicely, don't you?" said Sacket to Maine while watching the table with Lt. Thrace, Lt. Agathon, Sharon, John Cavil, Samuel Anders, and Simon O'Neill sitting with each other. There was tension still between the Colonials and Cylons at that table, but the group there represented the leader ship of the Cylon and Colonial resistance to the main Cylon Collective. Sackett leaned over to Maine and whispered, "We'll begin with Kara Thrace and those at her table."

LTC Sackett walked up to the table where Captain Kara Thrace sat. Sackett held a mess tray with a cheese burger, some cut fresh fruit and vegetables, and a cup of unsweetened iced tea. Standing at the head of the table Sackett waited until everyone noticed her standing there then she cleared her throat and said in a friendly manner, "Hello, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Tonya Sackett. I'm with the New Alaska Army National Guard and the powers that be decided it was my job to debrief all of you." Then she sat her tray on the table and sat in the empty chair as each person around the table introduced themselves to her.

It was John Cavil that spoke up first, "Colonel Sackett we have a question that begs to be answered. What we'd like to know is this, what colony are you all from? I mean the Colonial Fleet doesn't have any ships like yours neither does the Cylon Collective." Then Cavil took a bight of his food while he waited for LTC Sackett to answer.

"Well since this seems to be a give and take Q and A session over a meal let me begin. I was born in the town of Shalako, Colorado in the United States of America on Earth. Now though I live on my ranch on the planet New Alaska, a world claimed by the United States as an off-world territory. There I normally command a battalion of Army National Guard infantry as my military job and run one of the largest ranches on the planet with my twin brother." Sackett then took a sip of her tea then she asked a question, "So now that I've started by giving you all some hint of myself I'd like to know from each of you where you're from and what happened here?"

Kara Thrace spoke next and after eating an apple slice, "I'm Captain Kara Thrace of the Colonial Fleet Aviation Arm. I came back to Caprica to rescue as many as I could of Ander's resistance group. As to what happened about a year ago the Cylons returned to the Colonies intent on destroying us and killing off all of humanity. On a single day most of over thirty billion people died leaving only barely fifty to sixty thousands of us. I was on the Galactica as a Viper Pilot and because I was the senior pilot then Commander Adama made me Squadron Commander of our remaining pilots. Adama after our first battle with a squadron of Cylon Raiders jumped the Galactica to Ragnar Anchorage." Kara took a bite of her hamburger and after chewing it said, "At Ragnar we resupplied the Galactica…"

The story went on for several minutes with each person adding their part in what happened within the Colonies. LTC Sackett grew more and more incensed at what the Cylon race had done to this branch of her race, making synthetic humans to use against their natural born cousins, committing genocide on a scale never seen on Earth or the rest of the Galaxy using nuclear weapons, and pursuing those that managed to escape death in the initial attacks with the plan to exterminate all human life in the universe. "Christ you people have been through hell already! In my life the worst event to date was the terrorist attacks of September eleven of two thousand one!" she said shocked at what they told her of their recent history.

"What happened then may I ask if it's not a problem? And who is Christ?" John Cavil asked looking at LTC Sackett curiously. "I've never heard of a Christ being one of the Lords of Kobol," he stated flatly. The others around the table looked at the woman in the dusty looking gray-tan-green colored combat fatigues that were cut similar to the Colonial Marine Corps BDUs. She took in a breath, let it out slowly and looked as if she was trying to figure out how to tell them something of her own culture and perhaps her faith.

LTC Sackett looked at each person around the table knowing that the information she was about to speak of wasn't being prohibited from the Colonials and even the now known about Cylon Rebels. "Well there will be much we will educate and inform you on, but I will say that we aren't this missing Thirteenth Tribe of humanity that the folks in the Colonial Fleet talk about. We do call our planet Earth, but it sometimes is just called the world or even Terra…" She went on to talk about Earth's cultures, nations, what she knew of Earth's religions, and the history of the last fourteen years.

"I'm not a theologian nor am I a historian. I'm a rancher in my civilian life and only a part-time soldier. Back home on New Alaska I raise angus, long horns and other hardy breeds of cattle along with horses, llamas, alpacas, and some sheep and goats," Sackett added as she saw them looking at her like she had two heads or something. Lieutenant Kara Thrace got her attention like she had a question. "What do you want to know Lieutenant?" Sackett asked the younger blond woman who kind of reminded her of herself when she was only a Company Grade.

"Sir," Kara began, "Are you saying that your world believes in only one god? Does anyone on Earth worship the Lords of Kobol?" Kara looked a bit disbelieving at LTC Sackett, but Sackett knew that she couldn't lie to the young woman or any of the people at the table. The Cylons all looked at her differently, but their looks asked the same question of her.

"First of Lieutenant," Sackett started off, "It's ma'am for female officers in our service. Males are called sir except for Army NCOs they're referred to their rank or just Sergeant regardless of their gender. Now I know that the Lords of Kobol are analogist to the Olympian Gods of the Greco-Roman mythology and faith. Except for a small minority in different countries of Europe and North America they haven't been actively worshipped in over two thousand years. Now there are polytheists on the planet, and one of the largest of the major religions is polytheistic that is the Hindu faith." She took a break to drink some of her tea and take a bite of her food.

Cavil looked at her nodding his head in some understanding, "So for the most part your planet is monotheistic in its faith?" He looked at her as if he was testing her about her truthfulness. It did rub her fur the wrong way a little, but Sackett understood the question as she already was involved in a similar discussion with Admiral Adama, Commander Adama, and President Roslin prior to going on this rescue mission.

"Well yes and no, there are four major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Within each there are divergent sects that hold to the basic tenants of each faith. However there are people like the folks that were behind the attacks of September Eleven within Islam that see all other faiths as false and as enemies of Islam. My faith and faith is a personal issue for most people of my country on Earth and its Earth based and off-world territories is a denomination of Christianity. I'll set aside time for a discussion on faith with those interested in learning about it later, but I warn you I know more about ranching than about preaching," Sackett said as she looked Cavil in the eyes.

Sackett then looked at everyone for a second then spoke after some thought on what to say next, "I should inform you that within the Constitution of the United States of America we have a collection of amendments we call the Bill of Rights. First among these rights guarantees a free press, freedom to associate, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. It also prohibits our government from outlawing or making a state religion of any one faith."

It was Sharon that spoke next, "So your people can worship the gods or a god of their choosing without fear of state backed persecution?" Sackett nodded confirming what she wanted to know. Sharon had leaned forward to ask her question and now sat back in her chair with a thoughtful expression on her face. About then the XO of the Fourteenth Aerospace Fighter Squadron walked in and everyone in the room looked toward her then toward the Eights.

"What the frak!" blurted out Lt. Thrace as she saw a woman in Earth uniform who looked exactly like Sharon Agathon, Sharon Valerii and all the other model Eights in the Hammond's Mess Hall walk in. Major Susan Satterfield looked confused as her eyes first fell on Sharon Agathon, then on Boomer, and finally scanned the rest of the woman that looked like they could be her twins sitting at various tables around the room. "Sharon is she one of you?" Thrace asked looking at Satterfield seeing her name on the tape over her right breast pocket of her dusky light blue, gray, green, and tan tiger striped digital patterned BDU like uniform.

It was Sharon Agathon that spoke first, "She looks like us, but I don't know. She feels familiar to me somehow. It's like… it's like she's older…" Sharon then looked at Boomer then her eyes scanned around the room looking at all of her sisters noticing that each one was telegraphing through their expressions and the subspace link each had within their model. The one that walked in looked strangely at all the others that looked as if they were her twins only each somehow felt younger than her.

LTC Sackett stood up and looking at the newcomer said, "Major Satterfield perhaps you can explain why there are several copies of you in this room at the moment?" Satterfield looked at Sackett still confused, but she also looked as if she was trying to configure an answer that made sense even to her. She just looked back at the senior American officer in the room looking perplexed without anything to say at the moment. Nodding recognizing Satterfield's bewilderment, Sackett said, "Major, gather your thoughts then give a report to me which you will also give to General Carter after I release you."

Satterfield composed herself, took a deep breath, let out a sigh before looking at everyone in the room and giving her answer. She turned her gaze to LTC Sackett saying, "Colonel Sackett, everyone, I am a Cylon…" She let that piece of information trail off as she now looked into John Cavil's eyes, "One, you know my mission to Earth. I'm sorry I didn't keep up with my reports, but after I saw that there were trillions of humans in this galaxy and at least two others I just couldn't let your brother know just how large the human race was." Her eyes looked pleadingly now at LTC Sackett, "Brother Cavil there sent me to Earth to monitor, and only to monitor one of our brothers he placed there for his own protection. He knew that the elder of the John Cavils was going to kill our parents and our brother Seven. He had me take the youngest of our brother Seven's copies to Earth where I placed him up for adoption as a human child of five. You see the first of the Ones slew him and I took two of his incomplete twins to Earth about forty-three years ago. One twin had the original's memories and the other had the basic programming and what John here and I put into each of them to provide them with a history and personal data expected of a child of five."

Looking around as Daniel Jackson walked in Satterfield gave him a saddened look which Daniel returned with a strange stare. "Did I miss something?" Daniel asked. John looked at a face he hadn't seen since his brother's coup-de-ta all those years ago. The boy he sent away had grown into a man. He unlike his sisters and brothers in this room had eyes that said he had seen much… much more than even John had seen over the years. His brother, the elder John was wrong humanity deserved to live. John saw that in the faces of the humans within this room and in the face of Daniel.

"Little brother it's high past time that you know the truth of your life," said John Cavil. "It's also way past time I should correct the damage my brother has done to you, to the Cylons, and to the humans all in the name of jealousy."

Looking Daniel in the eyes John said, "The woods are lovely dark and deep…"

Daniel found himself involuntarily replying, "But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep" Daniel clutched his back then his throat giving out a strangled shocked, "Oh God… Oh my frakking God… That bastard killed me… Your brother, our brother killed me, our fathers, and our mothers… That frakking bleeding bastard… I'm going to so kill him when I meet him again… I'm not that dream I once was John, when the first John and I meet again he's a dead man! Then I'm going throw him into a sarcophagus to bring him back to life and kill him again and again and again!"

Generals Carter and O'Neill who entered after him looked over at Dr. Jackson overhearing his outburst after the Rebel Cylon lead called Jack Cavil said the first part of Robert Frost's poem _Promises _to Daniel. Daniel then without conscious thought said the balance of the poem in response. After Daniel said that he doubled over while sitting in a chair crying and saying, "That bastard killed my first parents… That frakking god forsaken insane with jealousy bastard killed Papa Saul, Mother Ellen, Papa Galen, Mother Tory, and you Papa Sam." At that point Daniel was looking at Samuel Anders with tears in his eyes. Then on an impulse he got up and embraced Sam Anders now crying tears of joy.

"Papa you're back! What did he do to you Papa and where are the others of our parents? Daniel said in perfect Caprican. He hugged Sam close like a son returned from a long journey away from his family.

"Seven, Daniel, lighten up. You don't have to squeeze me so hard," Anders said as he returned the hug. Only his was the embrace of a father welcoming home a long lost son. "I won't leave you again if I have a say in it Daniel," Anders said holding Daniel as the younger man in age if not looks continued crying on his shoulder and saying things about finally at least having one of his parents back in his life.

"Dad, John killed me then killed all of you. When I was resurrecting Jack over there halted the process and took me to Earth," Daniel stopped and looked at the confusion in Sam's eyes, "No dad, not your Earth the real one, the Earth of the Tau'ri." Daniel looked over at Brig. Gen. Carter who had stepped in with Lt. Gen. O'Neill to see how the debriefing was going. He swallowed hard and gathered his thoughts and composure as he looked at them and the other Tau'ri in the room.

"Daniel, what's going on? What do you mean by calling Sam Anders dad?" Carter asked looking just as bewildered as Jack.

"Yeah Space Monkey what do you mean by calling this man your dad? Doctors Millburn and Clair Jackson died in an accident when you were eight at the New York Museum of Art. So Danny what's up?" Jack said looking at Daniel as if he grew a second head.

Having already adjusting to her boyfriend being a Cylon, but not actually knowing he was one of the ones that created the biological Cylons Kara Thrace got up and looked at Daniel too with a bit of fear in her eyes. Not fear of Daniel, but of the fact that if Daniel grew up on Earth after his first death thinking he was an ordinary human child it meant that John Cavil knew exactly where Earth was. Admiral Adama may not know, but by the Lords of Kobol that homicidal maniac John Cavil did. Looking at Daniel and Sam she said, "I assume that the first Number One, John Cavil knows the exact location of Earth?" Daniel looked over to the second Number One, Jack Cavil pleading for him to say something.

Jack Cavil nodded freeing Daniel to tell what he knew, "Daniel tell her and them," Jack gestured with his right hand indicating everyone in the Mess Hall both Capricans and Earthers, "Seven they may as well know, especially the Earthers. It's their world for God's sake man." Then Jack Cavil gestured for everyone to sit and listen to Daniel. "After you've told what you know I want you to translate so that the others know what's at stake." Daniel nodded, composed himself again and looked around the room at the many faces now looking at him, his fellow Cylons, the Colonials, and the Tau'ri.

"My name is Seven as I'm the seventh model of human form biological Cylons. A Cylon in design and essence is a Cybernetic Life Form Node." He saw Jack O'Neill about to interrupt him, but he held his hand up stopping Jack saying, "Jack, Sam let me finish and then let me translate for the Colonials. I'm sorry to dump this on you now, but my older brother here must have thought it was important to have me know the full truth."

After that Daniel told of the founding of the world named for Earth by the original biological Cylons of Kobol. He went onto tell of their developing their own mechanical Cylons and the resulting war that followed between the descendants of the original organic Cylons and their creations. "That war ended with the Final Five, well I guess depending on which end of the timeline you're looking at they should be called the First Five. Anyways they traveled first to Kobol then later to the Colonies following clues they found on Kobol as to what happened. Their mission was to warn the Colonies of the dangers of making AI servants like the Cylons, especially without proper protocols to prevent them from harming humans."

Sam Anders did interrupt and said, "We failed. We found the Colonies embroiled in a war with their own mechanical Cylons," Daniel translated Sam's words for the Tau'ri. Sam continued, "We convinced the Colonial Cylons to end their war with humanity. We did this because we found them experimenting on those they captured trying to make their own organic bodies. What we found was horrific even for us. We had to stop them and end the war." Sam looked around at the Cylons, Colonials, and Tau'ri looking sad, but he had to finish his lecture about what happened to end the First Cylon War or the War of Independence as the Cylons called it.

Daniel nodded for Sam to continue so he did with his youngest son translating, "We told the Cylons that we'd teach them the right way to develop organic bodies for themselves, but only if they stopped their war with the humans of the Colonies." He reached down and took up his glass of water and took a drink as Daniel translated for the Tau'ri. He nodded to confirm what Daniel had said to his friends and countrymen. "We helped them to negotiate a peace with the Colonials and agreed to leave Colonial Space to seek out a world of our own. We did just that and lived in peace with the Colonials though we didn't contact them after we left."

Daniel translated that part as Sam took time to sip some more water before continuing, "We were going to develop at least three hundred individual models and allow them to procreate normally after we had all of them completed. Until we did that we decided to build our population with a variation on cloning. Since up to the time John rebelled and killed us we fixed it so the first models couldn't procreate with each other."

Sam Carter talked then, "I see you were trying to prevent genetic drift in your new race. So like the Asgard you took it up to clone your people until you had the other models up and running. Three hundred breeding aged people are what you would need to begin a base population to prevent genetic drift, Jack." She looked at Lt. Gen. O'Neill quieting his next interruption and asked, "How long did it take you to make the first of your models?" She was looking at Sam Anders then Daniel her old friend from her first days at the SGC back when it was Project Giza. Back in those days she even had a brief affair with him prior to his going with then Colonel O'Neill to Abydos.

Sam Anders looked at the blond female Tau'ri officer that came in with the older male one. "General Carter we made our first models over forty years ago. We lived with the first eight for about five years prior to Brother Cavil's brother's revolt." He looked over to Brother Jack Cavil before saying, "It was during our early days that Jack was sent coreward using one of the original Cylon Basestars."

Jack nodded, "It was on that mission I found both Papa Sam's Earth and your Earth. Papa your Earth is still a radioactive wasteland. Plant life and insect life is returning, but the background radiation isn't safe for human occupation as yet. Your Centurions used too many bombs to destroy the organic Cylon population. Since your Earth was still poisoned I went deeper into the spiral arm and found your Earth Generals Carter and O'Neill. It was by your calendar the early nineteen seventies."

Jack then looked at Daniel, "I down loaded you into the incomplete clone then Daniel after meeting up with the Doctors Jackson. I presented myself as an agent of Lutheran Social Services, the branch that handles adoptions of orphans. I found you a good home Daniel and you were to be raised by them as their own child."

Daniel nodded saying, "Jack you did as well as you could. I lived with my adoptive parents three years before the accident that killed them. After that I was passed through the New York Child Welfare system from one set of foster parents to another. I had many good parents while in the system, but when I was eighteen by their laws I was placed on my own. You see Jack in the United States I was deemed an adult then and was on my own. I put myself through college first at the City University where I earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree in Modern Languages. After I graduated from there I earned Doctorates in Linguistics and Anthropology from Harvard and another Doctorate in Archeology from the University of Chicago."

Sam Anders looked at Daniel then with a smile then asked, "So how did you wind up working with Generals Carter and O'Neill?" He looked like he wanted to know as he saw his fifth youngest son who looked like he may have actually by being made to live through a childhood grew into a mature person with his own personality.

"In the mid-nineteen nineties I had thought it was time to publish my findings that the Egyptian pyramids were actually landing structures for alien spacecraft. I was laughed out of my own lecture. I was met outside of my hotel by an Air Force sedan later in a rain storm over New York City. That was when I met Doctor Catherine Langford and was hired and read into Project Giza. I was hired as a translator."

Jack O'Neill finally interrupted saying, "It was Space Monkey here that got us into space by the way!" The pride for his friend in his voice was evident to everyone in the Mess Hall. Sam Carter smiled at her former commanding officer then, but gestured for him to let Daniel continue. Jack started to say more, but shut his mouth leaving what he wanted to say unsaid.

"Thank you Sam," Daniel said to Carter, "And thank you as well Jack. Now if I can finish talking to one of my real dads and my elder brother I can perhaps bring them up to speed on me and perhaps we can even gain some allies. I think my other brother John may prove to be as bad an enemy as any we've faced before. You've got to understand Sam, Jack that we Cylons are good at manipulating computers and computer networks. In this part of the galaxy Earth is the most networked world there is. Now I will continue my story."

"Father Sam," Daniel switched back to Caprican so the Colonials and Cylons in the room could understand him easier, "I helped them unlock the code to using a device called the Stargate. It's an interstellar means of transport that opens a wormhole similar to one of those opened by our jump drives only this one was stable enough for an individual or a party to walk through it from one world to another so long as there was another gate on the receiving world."

Jackson took a sip of water from a class offered to him by LTC Sackett who said to him in Athenian Greek, "It looked like you could use this Doctor Jackson. Now continue your story." She smiled at the man that in truth had been very instrumental in getting humanity off of Earth beyond the orbit of the Earth's moon.

He also noticed that it seemed his glasses were hurting him, not the tightness of the frames, but the prescription of the lenses. The constant trying to focus his vision to match the corrections of his script was causing him to have a headache. Tiring of this he took off and pocketed them. "I'm not sure why I had these all those years, but for some reason now my vision is better than it once was."

Sam Anders smiled, "I think it's because you don't really need them. To tell the truth you shouldn't have needed them even when you still thought you were a normal human. Now what have you been doing lately son?" Sam looked truly proud of Daniel so far for he had overcome the situation that the Ones had put him in. Yet he looked over to Jack Cavil and said, "Thank you Jack for taking him to the other Earth and finding him a home where he would be safe." Jack Cavil just nodded in acceptance and smiled. The smile was both a thank you and a gotcha for his brother John. Jack never ever believed that the destruction of the human race was the answer to getting their parents to show their love.

"Yes thank you Jack," began Daniel then he continued his story for his father, "Papa Sam I went through the Stargate with a team led by General O'Neill over there." With his eyes he pointed toward the older Tau'ri officer. "We found a small population of humans on the desert world Abydos. We helped to liberate the humans of Abydos from the slavery they were kept in by a Goa'uld named Ra who was masquerading as the Egyptian God of the same name. I think in the Kobolian mythos he was one of the lessor Lords, but on Earth Ra was the leader of the Egyptian pantheon. Anyway Jack and I led some local boys and my first wife in defeating Ra. Ra was killed in the battle when we sent the nuclear weapon that Jack was to use to close the gate on the Abydos side if it proved that things were dangerous to Earth."

"To be honest sir," Jack O'Neill said in Modern Athenian Greek, "We thought that we would be able to send the team back, but due to Ra having laws about teaching the humans to read we didn't have the codes at first we needed to dial back home. As it turned out Ra had managed to enhance the nuke I was to use so that it would have destroyed the base and much of the surrounding area if his people managed to send it back to Earth. When Daniel and I realized he also fixed it so I couldn't disarm the bomb we sent it back to Ra's ship using a teleportation system used by the Goa'uld. The bomb destroyed Ra's ship as he was trying to escape Abydos." Jack was going to say more, but Daniel gave him the look. So Jack let Daniel continue.

Daniel went on to tell what was declassified of the history of the Stargate and his involvement in the program. Then he smiled at Sam, "Dad I've done what you and the other Makers wanted us to do. I did my best though I was ignorant of my origins to aid them and protect them. I even learned to love and had a wife I loved very dearly. I also have a woman I love almost as dearly now. It's just she's in need of some guidance and direction."


End file.
